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SPORTING RECOLLECTIONS

OF AN OLD 'UN

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From a/>li,^l,th \: -■,;//,, '7,/ ]

"the old 'UN " AND " WAI.I.KR " ; THK TWO WORST
POACHERS IN WEST KENT

^^ SPORTING .^,:°
RECOLLECTIONS

OF AN OLD 'UN ^^^

FRANK N. STREATFEILD*C.M.G.

Anthtr tf " RtmimtcttKCS of an Old ' Un," etc., etc.

LONDON

EVELEIGH NASH

1913

(r"

PREFACE

I HATE prefaces. Nevertheless I should be

sadly lacking in both gratitude and good manners

were I to neglect to emphasize most warmly the

exceeding courtesy and kindness I have received

from my friends Mr. Cook, the editor of T^he

Fields and Mr. Huskinson, the editor of The

Tatler, who have graciously permitted me to

reproduce in this volume a few things that have

already appeared in their well-known and widely

read pages,

F. N. S.

Hevtr Cottage, Edenbridge,
January igij.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGS

Return to England after ten years' absence in South Africa —
Gun, cricket-bat and fishing-rod come readily to hand —
Shooting — Its social aspect — What Archie Stuart
VVortley has to say about it — A dose for the liver in the
silent watches of the night — Royalty expected but
didn't come : result— Comic aspect of shooting —
Aldeborontiphoscophornio and his master — Where does
the fun come in for those who miss nineteen shots out
of every twenty ? — Greedy shots — Now that is as it
should be — Roosevelt as a big-game hunter — Grouse
driving i, partridge driving 2, covert shooting 3, rough
winter shooting 4, also ran, shooting outsides in October
— Swaledale, farewell ! ...... i

'CHAPTER n

Easy grouse driving at Pitford — Partridge driving — A good
day's walk over a shot-out beat — Two invitations for
partridge driving — Lunch at one of 'em — Driving in
West Kent — Typical day at the end of the season —
" Come out, you little beggar, and join in the sport " —
Walking up partridges — A good but solitary day in the
Holmesdale Valley — Count de Baillet and some '84
Ayala. ......... 32

CHAPTER III

Grouse shooting over dogs — The Cuchullins in the distance
— The " Dragooner, " the writer and a keeper — Five
guns to one dog, the best sprinter annexes the shooting
— Bob and shove-halfpenny — -Folk who count their
shots, kills and misses, how do they do it ? — A rough
shooting — In the old Clattsman to Ardlussa — -A month
in Jura — Woodcocks — A yeld hind — O Lord ! two yeld
hinds ! — Curtain — Deerhounds, Cavack — A magnifi-
cent chase in Jura . 57

vii

Contents

CHAPTER IV

PACK

My host and nephew "S — M" — Oransay — Shooting of the
most varied description in Colonsay and Oransay —
" Waller ! " God bless his brown eyes and black curly
coat — A trifle of an upset at the edge of " the strand "
one evening — Archie appears nervous on wheels and
also a little later on in a boat — Oransay Priory and St.
Columba — The McNeills — The mermaids of Oransay,
otherwise seals — Dhu Heartach lighthouse — A very
narrow shave for a shipwreck on Eilan-nau-Rou —
Everlasting wind — A sorrowful upset thereby — S — M's
crowners, /. e. Some of 'em — Hangman's Hill and its
ancient rocky gallows. . . . . . • 77

CHAPTER V

Shooting in distant lands — Ignorance of the ordinary
colonist as to sport and natural history — Guinea-fowl —
Spiny-tailed ducks — Madagascar goose — Sand-grouse
and their habits — Snipe the " Spookbird " — A day
after snipe at Noneye's V\ey — Another Mistress Gilpin
of frugal mind — Quail — A very long and tough journey
by a man, and the Lord was on his side — Another by
a woman when He wasn't — East London in Cape
Colony — And a little description of a sleeping chamber
for a lady ......... 105

CHAPTER VI

Cricket — My first match — Poor " Snivvy," in other words
Edward McNiven — Alfred Lubbock — one Jumbo —
Neville Lubbock and Fred Norman, point and lob
bowler — The village grocer and six bottles of " fizz " —
The cricket company — Old Samuel Gurney the Quaker
— The " Butterflies " at The Mote, and an umpire^A
bellyful of bowling at Rickling Green and H. E. Bull,
a Harlequin, plays for the Quidnuncs and scores over
a hundred — The Authentics at The King's Arms,
Westerham — The Old 'Un's week — a Streatfeild eleven
— Dear lovely Pusey — Kent cricket in olden days . 128

Contents

CHAPTER Vn

PAGE

Back to South Africa again — Bechuanaland — Evil times, and
no residence of any sort — Cornwallis Harris's picture of
the high-road to Kuruman — Red tape, plenty of it — A
medical examination, and an old fossil says I am not
sound. Lor ! — A little game of golf — A candid opinion
of a good many Government officials whose only occu-
pation at that time consisted in licking the boots of
that great and good man, Cecil Rhodes — A description
of a frontier officer as he should not be — Keeping up
the dignity of Government out of the taxpayers' pocket
— Government servants in Downing Street and abroad !
— Methods of justice and decency in Bechuanaland — A
murder case of a very brutal description, murderer let
off by the all-pervading red tape — Bechuanaland Border
Police a disgrace to civilization, officers worse than the
troopers — Injustice to good men in the past, Byng,
Bartle Frere, Chinese Gordon, Butler, Archer Shee,
James Outram, Hammersley and dozens of others — A
little geology to finish up with — The Kuruman caves—
A terrified land surveyor — The story of the puff-adder,
by the kind permission of Mr. Theodore A. Cook,
the editor of The Field. 163

CHAPTER VHI

Fishing, lots of it — My Welsh tutor, his headers which were
not headers, quite the reverse ! — The Darent — My first
trout — The wrath of the Squire — Tarred roads and
consequently dead trout — Squerryes — General Wolfe
— Lullingstone — Sunset in Glendarent — Schwalbach —
The Neckar- — A day and not a wedding-day at Gretna —
Tickling trout — Snatching carp — Some other dastardly
methods of catching fish — Gaffing General Sir Redvers
Buller from the depths of the Shin — Hopes of finding
a drowned home-ruler, but no luck — Poaching and yet
more poaching ........ 236

CHAPTER IX

South Hampshire chalk streams, but more especially the
Test — One John and his little ways — A drive with
John — A sail with John — John's breeches — Punt
gunning with John, not if I know it — God bless his

Contents

lordship's steam launch — Memories of the past in
South Hampshire — More Test — Poor dry-fly men
can't catch trout unless they see them '^ sp/as/iing
about" — General Blowhard, (i) as a fisherman, (2) as
a puntman, (3) as a liar, but the greatest of these is
Number 3 — Some whackers of the Test — Three lambs
at Chilbolton . . . . . . . -271

CHAPTER X

The Oykel — Most peculiar river I ever fished — Paved with
salmon and grilse, but they won't take — Fish at the
falls when river was in spate, in other days caught with
landing-nets only and taken away in cartloads — A slice
of luck in the Holyhead express — Fishing in South
Africa — Handlines, rods, and other methods — Also a
little dynamite — The Knysna — Netting at night in the
Lora mouth — A very narrow shave from drowning —
Keeping up the dignity of Government once again —
Shooting an ibis from bed ! — Well ! very nearly . . 306

CHAPTER XI

Hawking — Ananias and Sapphira as falconers and church-
goers ; also they sing hymns unmelodiously, very — Chas-
ing a woodcock with a peregrine — Partridge-hawking
— Rook-hawking — Rabbit-hawking with a goshawk —
Marvellous art in the training of hawks — Good-bye 1 . 324

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

To fact p.
"THE OLD 'un' and " WALLER " ; THE TWO WORST

POACHERS IN WEST KENT . . . Frontispiece

CHIDDINGSTONE CASTLE ...
"S— m" . . . • • •

ELEVEN STREATFEILDS r. SQUERRYES : 1886
SQUERRYES COURT, WESTERHAM
MOTTISFONT ABBEY .....
LANDING A BIG ONE ON THE TEST AT KIMBRIDGE

AN EXCELLENT FALCONER, A FINE SHOT, AND THE
DRY-FLY MAN OF HIS DAY, ON THE TEST .

156

242

283
296

326

SPORTING RECOLLECTIONS

OF AN OLD 'UN

CHAPTER I

Return to England after ten years' absence in South Africa —
Gun, cricket-bat and fishing-rod come readily to hand —
Shooting — Its social aspect — What Archie Stuart Wortley
has to say about it — A dose for the liver in the silent
watches of the night — Royalty expected but didn't come :
result — Comic aspect of shooting — Aldeborontiphosco-
phornio and his master- — Where does the fun come in for
those who miss nineteen shots out of every twenty ? —
Greedy shots — Now that is as it should be — Roosevelt as a
big-game hunter — Grouse driving i, partridge driving 2,
covert shooting 3, rough winter shooting 4, also ran,
shooting outsides in October — Swaledale, farewell !

I CAN recall lines without end written by poets
in scores, nay ! hundreds, who have from time
immemorial animadverted on the subject of
Home in stanzas some of which make me feel a
better man and almost bring tears to my eyes,
while others, such mawkish rubbish are they,
only make me feel inclined to hunt down
the writers with fierce hounds and incontinently
slay them.

sporting Recollections

I love the verve of old Dibdin's lines —

" At last, 'twas in the month of May,

The crew, it being lovely weather.
At three a.m. discovered day

And England's chalky cliffs together.
At seven up channel now we bore,

While hopes and fears rushed on my fancy ;
At twelve I gaily jumped ashore

And to my throbbing heart pressed Nancy."

What a rattle and go there is in the words.
Can't you see it all before you as the ship glides
so smoothly towards the harbour ? Can't you
hear the order as the boat nears the jetty, " Way
'nuff, in bow," as a prelude to Jack taking the
fair and expectant Nancy to his arms. Compare
the above lines to some of the pithless rubbish
we have read about one Emma Morland, who
would assuredly have been knocked off the quay-
side by the stalwart Nancy ; for I can, in my
mind's eye, see the buxom young woman as well
able to hold her own ; nor do I imagine it would
have taken Jack very long to have made mince-
meat of that wretched, whining jackass, Edward
Gray.

At the end of November 1884 I was steam-
ing up Channel in the good ship Athenian, Cape
mail steamer, towards home after an absence of
very nearly ten years. Now, with the utmost
ease I could write any amount of sentimental
bosh as to how my pulses were throbbing at the
2

Of an Old 'Un

very sight of my native land over the port bow ;
how, so to speak, Nancy was waiting for me on
the jetty with outstretched arms, and how in
imagination strewn over the southern counties
of England I could see all my female relatives
with tears of welcome running down their
cheeks, while my sterner ones, with voices
betraying much emotion, were requesting a
benign Providence to pour down blessings on
the head of the returning traveller. I hope no
one will venture to substitute for " traveller "
the word " prodigal."

As a matter of fact, not for one moment did
any of these things cross my mind. There
wasn't a single sentimental thought in my
composition, I didn't ponder for an instant on
any village bells ringing on Sunday evenings as
I returned from church with Mary Jane, or " of
youth and home and that sweet time when first
I heard their soothing chime." No ! Very
much the contrary. I had not a thought for
any of these things, and as to my dear native
land, the only impression that it was making on
me as we neared its shores, and as I cowered in
the sheltered warmth near the funnel, was that
the breezes around it, although no doubt exceed-
ingly exhilarating, were, to one who had been
for so manv years in the warm and sunny regions
of South Africa, most infernally cold. It was,

B 2 3

sporting Recollections

moreover, most strongly borne in upon me, I
remember at the time, that we, a party of four
men, one woman and a baby, possessed but one
greatcoat among us, and also that as I was not
considered the most delicate of the party it did
not fall to my lot to take possession of it. I can
in this place hear the words of the carping critic
calling my attention to the fact that the adjective
" infernally " is altogether the incorrect descrip-
tive term to apply to " cold." I beg to differ
from him. I ask him to peruse once more the
thirty-fourth canto of the Inferno, and I trow he
will afterwards have but little fault to find with
my words " infernally cold."

In due course Southampton was reached, and
there were endless greetings from friends and
relatives who thronged on board when we
reached the dock side. Among others I noticed
a stranger, a rather smart-looking young fellow,
who was evidently, so to speak, in our galley,
and wondered who he could be. In due course
we were solemnly introduced to each other, not
altogether without chaff, and I ascertained that
he was one of my three sons. I had left him a
small schoolboy and returned to find him a very
much grown up undergraduate, just about to
take his degree. Small wonder, indeed, that I
did not know him.

I am afraid my chief thoughts, on being in
4

Of an Old 'Un

England and at home once more, ran rather
on shooting, fishing and cricket than on more
serious matters. I hope I may venture truth-
fully to assert that during a long and somewhat
arduous career, I have, when duty has called,
always been found ready to stick steadily to
work, putting sport and play wholly into the
background. Nevertheless I am quite certain
that never yet breathed a man, nor even a
schoolboy, who could possibly have been keener
for almost every description of sport and play
than I was. With the most unmitigated joy,
therefore, was I looking forward to taking part
in home life in England once again, in sport and
games and revelry of all descriptions, and indeed
for nearly three years, until I went back to
South Africa on service again — and for the last
time, praise be to God — I had the most gorgeous
time, thanks to all my dear kind friends, that it
was possible for a very poor man to have. I
played cricket or fished or shot almost every
day, and found myself with either bat, rod or
gun in hand all over England, and not infre-
quently in both Scotland and Ireland and also in
Norway.

After so prolonged an absence from home as
ten years I had rather dreaded that I mighd
have dropped out of the running and been
forgotten, and that among my friends with

sporting Recollections

shootings in my own beloved country of West
Kent I should no longer be wanted. Most
thankful, most grateful indeed, was I to find it
was not so. I had all the shooting I could
possibly manage. Indeed, in September 1885
I remember I shot every day except Sundays.
In those days we walked up partridges, to our
shame be it said, for driving them, in West
Kent at any rate, was, if not in its infancy, quite
a young child, and we none of us knew much
about really handling birds, while the ist Sep-
tember was still a very much recognized and
greatly honoured Saint's day and feast. I am
well aware that in Hampshire, in the year of
grace 1885, partridge driving was a very fairly
developed child ; indeed I bore my part, and
very indifferently I shot the driven birds, on
many occasions in that county before I took my
departure to the Cape in 1875. But in West
Kent partridge driving, at any rate as far as I
knew it, was decidedly ineffectual until much
later.

I have been found greatly to blame by many of
my friends, that in other pages that I ventured
to put before the public, not long ago, I refrained
from going into much detail about shooting and
fishing. It was certainly not from lack of
material. In whatever land I have sojourned,
wherever there has been game or fish to reward the
6

Of an Old 'Un

craft and energy of the hunter, I have shot and
fished ; and even in the almost waterless wastes
of Bechuanaland I have found pools that were
formed from hidden depths underground that
contained Barbers — not relatives, however, to
him either of the razor or of Seville — a grue-
some, loathly fish to look at, but not bad eating
withal when small, and for these have I angled
with bamboo, twine, and eel-hook when all other
forms of sport have failed. Indeed from the
quarter-deck of the old paddle steamer La Plata
I have caught at Buenos Ayres the poison-spiked
cat-fish, which have after the manner of their
kind grunted as they were hauled from the depth
of the Rio de La Plata to the immaculate decks,
and there deposited to the abiding wrath of the
skipper, who was no sportsman and took not
the slightest interest in cat or other fish except
with sauce and on a plate. If, therefore, the
reader finds himself in these pages overbored
with shooting and fishing details, I can only
offer my most heartfelt apologies and regrets
that I find it so difficult to please all sorts and
conditions of men, but I must add that to me it
is much easier to put before them what appears,
at any rate, to find favour with the gentler,
sweeter, and far more lovable sex.

My friend poor Archie Stuart Wortley, mag-
nificent shot and sportsman, fine artist and the

sporting Recollections

best of good fellows, once wrote, after certain
advice to the shooter as to what he had better
not do, as follows: "To some others, if they
will forgive me, I would say, eat the buttered
toast, swallow the tea, drink, the champagne,
discuss the port, sample the ' old,' make love to
the prettiest woman, tell all the best stories and
sing the latest songs, smoke the largest regalia
and go to bed last, in short enjoy everything,
but don't for the love of heaven go out shooting.
And who knows but that you may enjoy your
week, and be as great an acquisition to your
host and hostess as the most serious gunner of us
all." Now I agree with the writer of these
hnes, to the uttermost ; they are absolutely the
feelings of my own heart, but only to a certain
point. For when he finishes up his peroration
with the words, " but don't for the love of
heaven go out shooting," I turn away in dismay,
I am overwhelmed with despair. Not shoot,
forsooth ! And why not ? Do all these charm-
ing things that the writer refers to so cunningly
— we will by the same token pass by the buttered
toast and tea — the champagne, the port, the old
brandy, the regalia, and, "far beyond all that
the minstrel has told," the making love to the
prettiest woman, interfere in the slightest degree
with a man's shooting ? Nay, verily ! rather
the contrary. I believe they all combine to do
8

Of an Old 'Un

him good. I don't mean to say that he may
drink a whole bottle of " fizz " and many glasses
of port, or more than one of the " old," or smoke
more than two or perhaps three regalias. Let
there be decency in all things. But of this fact
I am quite certain, that so long as the divine
and lovely creature will suffer him, the longer
he makes love to the prettiest woman the better
it will be for him and the more deadly will be
his execution on the morrow. How many times
have I watched the men called together for a
few days' shooting and taken note of their varied
methods of eating, drinking, smoking and general
conduct, in order, as they hope, to be able to
produce their least inaccurate shooting. My
own experience teaches me that if a man is in
the daily — or perchance nightly is a better word
— habit of doing himself very well, he had far
better, if he have a few days' shooting on hand,
continue so to do himself. If he is a really good
shot, a sudden change of diet is only likely to
result in disaster. If he be, however, a bad shot,
no earthly abstention from the good things of
this world is the least likely to make him a better
one. I remember on a certain occasion we as-
sembled, eight guns on the Monday evening, to
shoot the four ensuing days in some exceedingly
well-stocked coverts. At dinner I was the
only one of the party who allowed himself

Sporting Recollections

champagne (it was '80 Pol Roger), and port
which was '47. The others drank light claret, and
most assuredly in no way whatever did it seem
to assist them, for worse shooting I have seldom
seen. As the week progressed this forced abste-
miousness wholly vanished, and the champagne,
the port and the old, old brandy suffered accord-
ingly. On another occasion we were staying,
a goodly party, in a most lordly mansion, but
where, however, our most excellent host and
hostess thought much more about the cuisine,
the cellar and the commissariat department gene-
rally than the gun-room and the artillery thereof.
It was indeed a veritable abode of Lucullus, and
among other trifles I remember that a cordon bleu
and his attendants were driven away each morn-
ing early as avant-courriers to prepare our lunch
at a lodge in the woods, where all appliances and
means to boot (for cooking) had been duly pro-
vided. As the week approached its termination,
to me entered about midnight a figure arrayed
in the graceful folds of a dressing-gown of many
hues, bearing in its hands a large blue bottle
and a tumbler, and the following conversation
ensued —

" This is ripping stuff for the liver, old man.
I'm going to give you a dose."

" No ! I'll be d d if you are, not a drop,"

was my somewhat curt reply.
10

Of an Old 'Un

" What ? Are you feeling fit ? If you are,
you are the only man in the house that is, I can
tell you. Why, we've all got livers as big as a
football. We've all been taking some."

" Me fit," I answered. " Of course I'm fit,
fit as a buck rat. Why shouldn't I be .? Just
you listen to the words of Solomon, that's me,
for a minute, to your vast profit. All you greedy
beggars through the whole of this week have
been eating unlimited quantities of the very
richest dishes you could find to put down into
your ungodly tummies. You haven't drunk too
much, I grant, but you've had quite enough ;
but as to eating, O Lord ! Why you, you
lunatic standing there like the ghost of Noah's
great-grandfather, with that beastly great blue
bottle in your hand, you, as I live by bread,
have I seen eating great fids of pate de foie gras
three times a day, to say nothing of unlimited
* goes ' of the very richest made-dishes, even at
lunch. Liver as big as a football ! I should
think so indeed ; I wonder it isn't as big as a
bath. Avaunt ! out of it, I say, with your

d d blue bottle." And as he departed I

added, " Why, man, on Tuesday you and Jack
shot like two dear little tin angels, and now,
upon my soul I don't believe you could hit a
church if you were put inside of it."

I well remember one night at dinner when
• 11

sporting Recollections

I was sitting next my hostess, an exceedingly
seductive and savoury plat was handed to me and
refused. " O, Mr. Streatfeild, you really must
take some of that entree, you must ! It takes
six pheasants to make the sauce alone." Never-
theless I still resisted temptation, and indeed to
me it was none, for I honestly prefer good cold
roast beef to any meat you can put before me.
Plebeian I grant, and perhaps that may be the
reason why at the usually lamentable age of
threescore years and ten my digestion is plebeian
also, and that I have not sat in a dentist's chair
since I was a lower boy at Eton.

On one occasion at that same lordly establish-
ment Royalty was expected for a certain shoot.
Everything was duly arranged, the fatted calf
was killed, and without doubt many pheasants —
for sauce — bit the dust. The shoots were
planned, thought over and digested with a view
as far as was possible to put all the birds over
Royalty's head, and the evening and the morning
were the first day. But Royalty never turned
up after all, and in the tents of Judah there was
wailing and gnashing of teeth. Nevertheless
the boss of the show took care of himself and
was quite equal to the emergency. At every
beat of the day he placed himself at the stand
that had been destined for Royalty, and greatly
distinguished himself in missing altogether, or
12

Of an Old 'Un

hitting at the wrong end, more birds, if possible,
than he ever had so treated before. It was a
great shoot entirely, and infinite amusement was
derived by those who were present. Verily I
say unto you that Royalty — God save him — on
that occasion caused more amusement and sup-
pressed laughter by his absence than he had ever
done in life before by his august and beloved
presence.

By the gracious permission of the editor of
The Tatler I am allowed to insert a few para-
graphs, which appeared in that charming peri-
odical under my name, on the comic side of
shooting, and indeed to the close observer and
experienced sportsman the comicalities in these
days of the consulship of Plancus are legion.

There are no comic sides in the shootings of
sportsmen. Please don't forget this. Neverthe-
less in unnumbered shooting parties the comic
element is so abundant that it is but seldom
lacking to the acute observer. As a rule those
who are continually supplying the comicalities
have not the least idea that by the real sports-
men who are present they are being quietly
laughed at through the whole day. There are,
for instance, a few people, most eminently respect-
able haberdashers, tallow-chandlers, money-
lenders, pork-butchers et id genus omne, who
during the day, and on their own shooting, put

01 ^■

sporting Recollections

themselves in the warmest place to the best of
their knowledge and ability at every stand. If
these weird folk could hear the remarks that are
made about them by all shooting men in their
own neighbourhood, some of them at any rate
would be astonished ; while some of them, so
accustomed have they been to snatching and
grabbing at the very best of everything all
through their lives, I verily believe that even
at their own shoots they look upon the best
place at every beat as their inalienable right. It
was at a partridge drive that one of these — a
haberdasher he was — asked an old sportsman
who was present what was the best way to
arrange the guns. " Draw for places and go
up one place, or two with an uneven number of
guns if you like, after each drive," was the
prompt reply. This was carried out. Now it
so happened that Mr. Haberdasher was outside
gun during the first two drives and didn't get
a shot, while others got several. He growled
at this in no measured terms, said he'd have no
more of this drawing for places method, and put
himself bang in the middle of the line at every
drive for the remainder of the day, to the very
great detriment of the bag.

Well do I remember a shoot with another of
these greedy beggars. He had lately bought
a pair of guns and taken a shoot, and a good one
14

Of an Old 'Un

too. We guns were being scattered about by
the head keeper, who told his master to go to a
certain place. No ! no ! Not the place you are
thinking of ! Now this particular shooter was
craving, on his own shoot even, just the very
best place and no other. This time the poor
soul thought he had not got it, and exclaimed
aloud to the head keeper, " Oh ! but I shall get
no shooting there," in the hearing of us all. Ye
gods ! Something a trifle comic about that, is
there not ? I know a palatial establishment
where there is a fair covert shoot maintained at
enormous expense. In raking the guns together
for this shoot I have noticed that the chief
consideration is by no means the capabilities of
the guests with their guns, nor even their social
charm. A lord who cannot hit a house is a
much more desirable personage than a commoner
who can slay his thousands. The handle to a
man's name is of infinitely greater importance
than the manner in which he handles his gun.
A great cause of offence to that particular palace,
the name of which is not Midas Towers, though
it might be, is that a neighbouring noble and
most popular man who happens to be a peer and
a very good shot persistently refuses all invita-
tions, shooting or otherwise, to what he is pleased

to call " that d d crib." One fine morning the

guns were assembling at the hall door. " Ready

Sporting Recollections

for a start, my lord ? " was asked of a certain
Lord Tomnoddy who had arrived the evening
before. " What ? To shoot ? Me ? I never
fired a gun in my hfe ! Am I supposed to be
invited here to shoot ? " O Lord ! I have
noticed that it was very seldom that any sports-
man came twice to stay beneath the shelter of
those particular towers.

Usually a good host, who is at the same time
a good sportsman, will mete out to all his guns
places that will produce for all about the same
amount of shooting. He will take note of what
each gun is doing and arrange matters accord-
ingly without favour; but, as I have said before,
with sportsmen there is no comic side. With
some others the thing to be considered firstly,
secondly, thirdly and altogether is the social
standing of the guest, and still more in these days
the depth of his purse, no matter whether he
can shoot or whether he can't, no matter whether
he is safe or whether he isn't. Indeed there are
many snobs who would gladly be peppered by
a lord, if only he would ask them to dinner
afterwards. One of these I have often watched
with utter marvel handling his gun. He literally
never hit anything. Nevertheless he was usually
quite pleased with himself. At a hot corner
when he was blazing away on all sides of him, I
verily think that good man honestly believed he
16

Of an Old 'Un

had shot his full share of the birds that were
gathered around and behind the forward guns,
whereas in all human probability he had not
touched a feather. A man I know exceedingly
well, a very good shot, was one day told off by
our host to stand next to this wretched duffer
and shoot as far as was possible at the birds the
duffer was likely to shoot at, and about the same
moment that he did. The success of the scheme
was quite wonderful, and for the remainder of
the day and late on into the night, especially
late on into the night, the poor duffer could talk
of nothing else but his perfectly phenomenal
shooting through the wonderful day. There
was a well-known correspondent of T'lie Field in
years gone by who signed himself " One who
has fired 20,000 shots at a mark." If instead of
the words " a mark " we write pheasants, and
add, " and never hit one," it would almost apply
to that poor man.

One evening after a very big shoot, he was
asked in the smoking-room how many pheasants
he had shot during the day. " I'm not quite
sure," he replied, " it's either ninety-six or
ninety-seven, but we'll soon find out." Then
he rang the bell. "Send Aldeborontiphosco-
phornio to me," said my lord to the footman.
Yes ! He really was a lord, somewhat newly
constructed though, and very full of the stuff

<= 17

Sporting Recollections

that in the days of the present radical Govern-
ment Peers are made of. Then entered to us
my lord's valet and leader. His name was not
really Aldeborontiphoscophornio, but it ought to
have been, for he was simply superb in his
grandeur, surely emperor of all grenadiers, much
about the same as one Ames in the Jubilee pro-
cession. " How many birds did I shoot to-day ?
Was it ninety-six or ninety-seven ? " asked his
lordship. " Ninety-seven, my lord," replied
Ananias, without a blush or even a twinkle of
the eye. Then ensued a roar of laughter that
might well have brought down the roof, while
my lord merely remarked, " I can't see what on
earth you silly fools are laughing at."

I was once in the absence of the owner
managing a covert shoot for him, quite a good
one. He had given me instructions previously
as to the disposal of the guns, and as to those he
wished placed in the forefront of the battle.
These were two, and they were to remain in
that enviable position — it was a very different
one from poor Uriah's battle — all day. One
was a general and the other was the Right Hon.
the Member for St. Blazes. These two were
not only to have the best places all day, but,
moreover, which was much worse, were not to
be backed up by a gun or two behind them, as
they did not like having their " eyes wiped."
18

Of an Old 'Un

They could neither of them shoot a little bit,
and it was a piteous spectacle to see the birds
all day long streaming away " unhouseled, dis-
appointed, unaneled," untouched I mean, over
those two old dears' heads. They easily con-
verted what should have been a six-hundred or
seven-hundred head day into one of considerably
less than three hundred. Now will some one
kindly explain to me where their fun comes in ?
It cannot possibly be in the fact of standing and
missing things all day long. Also they look
miserable, and curse and swear just like any
old long-handicapped parson of a golfer. Truly
they tell us they never shot so badly in all
their lives before, which is rot, and the thing
which is not, for they always do it with the
utmost regularity, and just as regularly " gas "
exactly the same nonsense about it.

I remember a very good day's partridge driv-
ing being to a great extent ruined, or at any
rate having its bag reduced by one-half, owing
to two most worthy old gentlemen, both
atrociously bad shots, being planted bang in
the middle of the line of guns during every
drive of the day. They fired certainly between
them some four hundred cartridges, and as
certainly didn't put twenty brace of birds in
the bag. On yet another occasion I was watch-
ing two young men at work with their guns —
C2 19

sporting Recollections

they did fair Etona scant credit that day — and
saw them fire two hundred and forty cartridges
at one rise of easy pheasants, with a result of
only five birds picked up. They both lost their
heads as soon as ever the birds began coming,
and simply blazed away anywhere, anywhere up
in the sky, and sometimes not within twenty
feet of the bird shot at. I have more than once
watched a company of "Tommies" in action
who were new to the game, letting off their
Martinis presumably at the enemy. They were,
however, all shooting wildly up into the sky,
miles over the enemies' heads. These two young
men reminded me forcibly of " recruities " at
work. How do I know they fired two hundred
and forty shots ? I superintended the filling of
their bags before the rise began ! I also enjoyed
a good laugh when I saw them and their
attendant girls — possibly the cause of such very
unsuccessful gunnery — engaged in carrying away
the scores and scores of empty cartridge cases
and depositing them in the depths of an adjacent
ditch. Once more what I wish is, that some
kind friend would inform me where on earth
the fun comes in.

One hot September day I met a man at a
partridge shoot. He was an American million-
aire, but had never shot before. He had a pair
of new guns, new cartridge bags, new clothes,
20

Of an Old 'Un

new gaiters, new boots, and last but not least,
from his point of view at any rate, I should
think, a pair of most awfully sore feet. I
believe the only thing he killed, or even thought
he killed, during that long September day was a
partridge that some one else had fired at too.
No ! he didn't bag a man, which it appeared to
me was bordering on the miraculous. In a
certain field of standing barley that we walked
in line were a great many young pheasants
which kept rising in front of us all the way
down the field. He steadily blazed away at
them, and no one said him nay, for we none of
us, our dear old host least of all, wished to put
an end to his most innocent and bloodless
recreation. He never made one single bird
shed a feather.

It is very wonderful to me how " fearfully "
keen, I use the word " fearfully " advisedly, some
of these rank duffers are. It seems to me that
the more unsuccessfully they shoot, so much the
more anxious are they to let their guns off.
They hate sparing hens, indeed it is only with
very great difficulty that some of these middle-
aged shooters who started their shooting career
late in life can be persuaded to spare anything,
even a " stop." As to letting a bird go because
it isn't theirs, they never dream of such a thing
for a moment. If they happen to be " back

sporting Recollections

with the beaters," which by the same token is
a thing they don't at all admire, they march
along and come right up to the forward guns
and then blaze away freely at the forward flying
birds, which they have no right even to look at.
Many a time have I watched these gentlemen
hastening on round a corner and planking them-
selves between the covert and the forward guns,
and then doing their best — luckily their feeble
best — to prig all their neighbours' birds. I
must allow, however, that these dreadful things
are usually confined to commercial circles only.
Real country gentlemen, real sportsmen, would
sooner perish than be guilty of such selfish
atrocities. Sometimes it is just over-keenness
leads them astray. They put themselves back,
honestly meaning to stay there, but when birds
begin to rise to the forward guns they cannot
resist the temptation to get away on, and get a
look in ; they positively cannot help themselves.
These to some extent have my sympathy. They
would not do it if they could help it. They
are quite different from the downright greedy
pigs who mean, coute que couie, to snaffle the
best of everything, and to shoot at every bird
that is within reach, as well as a great many
that are not.

Not long ago a very good shoot was on hand
near the home of one of these same greedy pigs,
22

Of an Old 'Un

but he had not been bidden to the feast, The
G. P., an enormously wealthy, and in his own
eyes at any rate an exceedingly important,
person, could not believe it, he felt certain there
must be a mistake somewhere, so he actually,
incredible as it may seem, sent his head keeper
to interview the other man's head keeper to try
and ascertain the true state of the case. The
fact, as I well knew, was that the G. P., by
shooting other men's birds and by his incessant
firing of low and dangerous shots, had worn out
his welcome and could be tolerated no more.

Since the tremendous keenness of youth has
worn off I have cared infinitely more for the
cheeriness, good temper and unselfishness of my
shooting companions than for the amount of the
bag. It is far greater pleasure to me to shoot
a few score head of game in the company of
good sportsmen and cheery companions than to
kill hundreds when my mates are greedy shots
and, as is too often the case, wholly lacking in
all knowledge of woodcraft. One really greedy
shot in a team of six guns will very possibly ruin
the pleasure of the day for the other five. It is
impossible to get away from him. Wheresoever
the carcase is there will the vultures be gathered
together. In other words, wherever birds are
thickest there or thereabouts will your greedy
shot, by hook or by crook, manage to butt in.

Sporting Recollections

He is without shame, and no rebuff seems to
penetrate his pachydermatous hide.

I need scarcely observe that the systematically
greedy shot that we, alas ! so frequently meet in
almost every county, and more especially in
regions not remote from the City, almost always
has good shooting of his own. It must be so,
for if he had nothing to offer in return for the
shooting he has with his neighbours he would
cease to exist. Indeed, as it is he growls and
grumbles a good deal that he is so frequently
left out in the cold. It is, I fancy, very seldom
indeed that you will see a poor man a greedy
shot. He is probably asked to shoot because he
handles his gun like a sportsman and gentleman,
and never takes a bird that isn't his own except
by mistake. In good company how frequently
does one see a bird go away unshot, followed by
the remark made by the two sportsmen over
whom it sailed, to each other, " I'm awfully
sorry, I thought it was yours." Now that is as
it should be. How different it is with a couple
of these others who have crawled in to as near
the covert as they dare, and let off" their four
ineffectual barrels to try and grab the bird from
their neighbours before even the poor beast of a
bird has got decently into the air.

I must allow I do know a very greedy man or
two who, although far from being blessed with
24

Of an Old 'Un

this world's goods, get a great deal of shooting.
But they are most excellent shots, and at the
same time are most careful never by any chance
to bag a bird that belonged to a host with whom
they were in the habit of shooting. Verily I
have watched this division times without
number, and have laughed to see them sparing
bird after bird that was on its way to the Squire,
Lord Broadacres, or Moses Goldenberg, well
knowing that the next beat, when I myself
happened to be one of the forward guns, they
would come creeping along from their place
with the beaters and down every bird in my
face. These people have some very pretty nick-
names among sportsmen, real sportsmen, but these,
and they are not altogether bereft of embroidery,
are not customarily made use of to their faces.

What little big-game shooting I have had has
been of an entirely negligible quantity, and has
usually come in my daily avocations. Some of
it was pleasant, but a great deal of it bored
me to extinction. I am quite sure I was never
intended for a big-game hunter. Buffalo I have
indeed shot, and I have lived within easy reach
of elephant, and for years had hippos almost at
my doors, but I never interfered with either, nor
had the smallest inclination to take their lives.
Even when I have shot some of the most
splendid antelopes, such as koodoo, gemsbok and

sporting Recollections

hartebeest, I honestly think it has caused me
more regret than pleasure, and of late years I
have refused point-blank to go out and shoot a
stag. I well remember one day not long ago
being asked if I would go out to the hill and
shoot a stag, or go out sea-fishing with the
ladies. I chose the latter, and had an exceed-
ingly happy day, and baited hooks without
number, and made the lives of many fishes both
great and small exceedingly uncomfortable.

There have been books without end written
as to big-game hunting, chief among which that
I greatly delight to honour are those by Selous
and Cornwallis Harris. A book of very much
more recent date by that great self-advertiser,
Theodore Roosevelt, I look upon with the
utmost contempt. His was a big-game expedi-
tion indeed. Compare the manner in which
that expedition was instituted and carried through
with all its appliances, its doctors, its photo-
graphers to take the important and all-conquering
Teddy standing in triumph in all his glory on
the top of every poor beast that he slew, to say
nothing of the pseans of praise that appeared
from time to time in the daily press as to the
exploits of the advancing hero. Compare the
Roosevelt expedition with the work accomplished
so modestly and quietly by Harris and Selous ;
think of what those two men went through and
26

Of an Old 'Un

of their unaided victories over the fiercest wild
beasts and perils unnumbered. Then ponder on
the other with all its gorgeous set-out, its
shikarees, its trackers, its printers, its photo-
graphers, its parsons and its band. I misre-
member — in the language of that expedition — the
parsons and the band, but I allow they were
there all the same. Well may we exclaim,
" Look here upon this picture and on this."

To my mind the most absolutely charming
shooting in the world is in the United Kingdom,
and the pick of the basket is grouse driving
first, partridge driving second, covert shooting
third, and rough winter shooting fourth. Of
course there are other most fascinating methods
of securing feathered game, but the methods I
have mentioned appear to me to possess an
entourage which lends them a greater charm and
more alluring details than are met with where
fewer guns are required. What can be more
delightful than to take one's part in some lovely
home among a cheery, well-arranged party for
grouse driving, either in the Highlands of Scot-
land or perchance in the wild dales of Yorkshire.
Can aught be pleasanter ? Do not forget that
apart from the sport itself there are many other
things that go far to enhance or mar the exceed-
ing charm of a well-arranged house-party for
grouse driving. Think of the stroll in the

Sporting Recollections

gloaming with the fair creature who has been
gracing your butt, lucky beggar that you are,
through the day, saying, let us hope, many
soothing things to you anent the unerring pre-
cision of your deadly barrels. Perchance there
has been a spate and the river is in perfect order,
and before dinner you feel sure you can lead her
to where she will be certain to meet that fifteen-
pounder that came short to you a few evenings
ago. Out goes her bonny Durham Ranger, and
comes sweeping across the stream ; another cast
a yard lower down, there is a boil in the water,
and she has him. Then comes the fun ! Isn't
it fun for you, too, my friend, to watch the
glowing cheeks and dancing eyes, as she deftly
handles her rod, skips from rock to rock, like
any chamois, after her fish, and in due course
guides the bonny silvery fellow to your feet ?
And as you gafF, kill and lay him glistening on
the bank, are her thanks not something worth
having ? Isn't that witching smile something
w^orth running about after ? Go to ! If these
don't make something under your Norfolk jacket
tingle, you are no good to me. You can't hit
driven grouse, or cast a fly within ten feet of
where you wish, and had better resign yourself to
a bath-chair and a dressing-gown until the finish.
How well do I remember a certain morning
in October, years ago, when I found myself in a
28

Of an Old 'Un

butt in the north-west corner of Yorkshire. It
was a Monday. At sundown, on the previous
Saturday, we had finished the last partridge drive
of the day in the middle of that most excellent
partridge country around Docking, in the north
of Norfolk. I at once proceeded to thresh my
way through Lynn, Peterboro', Darlington and
other places to Richmond, where I found a dog-
cart waiting for me, and had a most delightful
twenty-mile drive through the heart of lovely
Swaledale to find myself gun in hand, fit and
unwearied, just as the grouse were beginning to
come along. It was what we were pleased to
call " the poor relations' shoot," for it was the
third time over the moors ; nevertheless, we
made up over a hundred brace a day. Yes !
and they were birds, too, and took some pulling
down. Picture to yourself a beautiful mid-
October morning on those grand moors, rolling
away to the far horizon and beyond where the
eye could reach.

The roar of the water rushing over Kisden
Force in the distance falls soothingly on the ear,
the lovely little lady — who has become since
that day the wife of one of my best friends —
who had been good enough to wait for me on
the road to show me the way to my butt, is
gracious and smiling, and wears a most becoming
but suitable hat and short skirt — wise little

Sporting Recollections

woman — and all is well. A couple of miles off,
for a moment against the sky I can just make
out the line of drivers, who disappear as they
sink the hill, but as we well know are coming
on steadily towards us. Soon here and there
black dots appear for a moment and disappear
again, and we are aware that the birds are
coming on. " Ah ! would you, you brute," we
exclaim as an old cock grouse, who has come
silently skimming along low over the heather,
very nearly catches us napping, but not quite ;
for he is shot behind us, and not in front as he
ought to have been, and tumbles headlong into
the heather, first blood of the day. Soon birds
begin coming all along the line, and the firing is
general. Look ! look at that enormous pack of
birds going away to our right, surely they will
get away off the drive unscathed. No ! Up
comes a flag out of the heather in front of them,
and they turn away. Up comes another, and
yet another. Good ! good indeed ! Well done,
flankers ! Nobly have you saved that enormous
pack, which are now heading straight for the
butts. Now, guns, do your duty and load like
lightning, for at " the poor relations' shoot " we
are not allowed two guns. Good men ! they
know their work, and let the leading birds
through the line unshot at, to show the rest
of the mob the road to glory or the grave.
30

Of an Old 'Un

Soon after the first drive, I was left-hand gun of
the line, and behind me was an almost sheer fall
of some hundreds of feet down to the river
Swale, which flowed along far below us.

" Anything to pick up ? " I was asked at the
end of the drive.

" Yes ; seven, but deuce knows where, for
they all fell over the brae and are gone to blazes.
We shall never find 'em at the bottom of that
infernal precipice."

" All right, old man. Keep your hair on. It's
a put-up job. We thought we'd score off you.
There's a man waiting down below who has
been keeping watch for your birds as they came
tumbling over, and probably they are all gathered
by now. They usually am't much of runners by
the time they get to the bottom of what you
are pleased to call ' that infernal precipice.' "

So and thus that week too passed away.
More sporting, more glorious shooting I never
took delight in, and that is saying a very great
deal, for I don't think there breathes a man
who has been a truer lover of good sporting
shooting than I have, and indeed, thank God,
I am so still, in spite of much white hair and
many increasing infirmities. Dear Swaledale,
with your unending beauty, fair heights of
Kisden, and Gunnerside, farewell! I fear I
shall never see you again.

CHAPTER II

Easy grouse driving at Pitfour — Partridge driving — A good
day's walk over a shot-out beat — Two invitations for
partridge driving — Lunch at one of 'em — Driving in West
Kent — Typical day at the end of the season — " Come
out, you little beggar, and join in the sport " — Walking
up partridges — A good but solitary day in the Holmesdale
Valley — Count de Baillet and some '84 Ayala.

The easiest grouse driving I ever came across
was at Pitfour in Aberdeenshire. It is a very
flat moor, not big, and very comfortably handled.
The birds come straight and easily, and unless
in a high wind one ought seldom to miss a
shot. A man once went to stay at Pitfour, and
the day after his arrival a grouse drive was
toward. He confessed at dinner that it would
be his first day at driven grouse. He was
considerably chaffed during the evening as to
what a ghastly mess he'd make of it, how he'd
lose his head and shoot miles behind everything,
and indeed be a very unhappy person in several
different ways. It was a nice still morning.
His butt was in the middle of the line, and all
was as it should be. At the end of the drive
his host and another came to him and this
conversation ensued —
82

sporting Recollections

" Well, how did you get on ? You had some
shooting I saw."

" Pretty well, thanks ! Yes ! I had nineteen
shots."

" How many did you kill ? "
" Well ! nineteen ! "

" What a d d liar you must be then.

You said at dinner last night you'd never shot
a driven grouse in your life."

"Yes, that was true. I never have shot a
driven grouse until this morning, but I have
shot tens of thousands of driven partridges,
which are infinitely more difficult than any of
the ' sitters ' I have killed just now."

I think I have helped to make bags of driven
partridges under every conceivable circumstance
and in many most favourable localities. Norfolk,
Suffolk, Essex, Kent, Hampshire and occasionally
other counties have all helped to make my
education as little incomplete as possible. But
this fact I am quite sure of, and am prepared
to assert it on my sacred word of honour. It
is that the longer we live and the longer we
study not only the world of sport but also the
habits, manners and peculiarities of the animals,
the birds, the fishes, the butterflies and the innu-
merable other living creatures in which we take
interest, the greater will our own lack of observ-
ation and stupendous ignorance be impressed

Sporting Recollections

upon us. Our diagnosis of circumstances, our
suggested remedies for manoeuvres gone awry,
will so frequently prove wrong and futile, that
at length — I grant it takes some time — we
are persuaded, nay, rather, we are forced into
the belief that we know very little indeed,
and that when our old friend Robbie Burns
made use of those oft-quoted words anent men
and mice, he know uncommonly well what he
was talking about. Southey, too, was very wise
when he made one of his characters remark that
" My age just knows enough to understand
how little all its knowledge." I once heard the
remark as to a whist-player, " Poor devil ! he
doesn't even know enough to see that he knows
nothing."

When a man becomes aware that in matters
that appertain to sport and to bird and animal
life he has learnt perchance but one-thousandth
part of what there is to know, he is on the high-
road to a glimmering of knowledge. In the
alphabet that comprises the twenty-four letters
from A to Z he has, let us hope, learnt A, and
that is a good deal. There are thousands and
thousands of men who fancy they know all there
is to be known as to shooting and sport, who
have never even come to the knowledge that
the letter A exists, or that there is an alphabet
at all.
34

Of an Old 'Un

A man I once knew well, and with whom I
shot a great deal — he has long been dead, poor
fellow — assured me, in an expansive moment
after dinner, that he knew there was only one
man in the world who was as well acquainted
with the art of partridge driving as he was, and
that man was the late Lord Leicester of Holk-
ham. Now this, for the possessor of it, was an
exceedingly gorgeous belief. I never knew this
man shoot away from his home, where every-
thing was of course managed according to his
own wild will, and wild indeed it was on occa-
sions. He knew almost nothing about the art
of partridge driving. If we got fifty brace of
birds when we had seen enough to get three
times the number, he was quite contented, and
never for one moment became aware that through
his execrable management streams of birds had
gone away unshot at, and were lost for the day.
Although he had an enormous partridge shoot,
and only about half shot it, he didn't much like
any shooting being done unless — as Paddy would
say — his honour was in it. When we were
allowed to go forth without him, we generally
found that the head keeper, much against his
own will, had received orders which made us
feel that v^^e were, as the immortal bard puts it,
" cabined, cribbed, confined," and, moreover, we
were never allowed to continue shooting after

D 2 35

orting Recollections

the birds had come on to the stubbles to feed.

A d d silly idea in my opinion, and one, I

fancy, I have never come across elsewhere.

Once, and only once, I got a free run and was
allowed out, on the promise to be back in the
house by four o'clock. It was a Saturday and
nothing was doing. I asked our host after
breakfast if his eldest son, who was then eighteen,
and I might go out for a shoot. I got per-
mission to shoot over a certain farm that had
already been pretty well worried, as it was near
headquarters. As we took our departure, our
host again rubbed in about the four o'clock rule,
and added, " You'll be pretty clever if you get
twenty brace." I smiled a grim smile in my
sleeve, and thought to myself, if I can't get
more than double twenty I'll eat my hat. There
were, as I well knew, swarms of birds, but they
were very wild. The cover, chiefly good roots,
was well situated. We had three or four good
active young keepers with us who were as keen
as mustard. I explained my plan of campaign,
which was to drive the birds from root field to
root field, running as hard as we could lick, get
them tired and frightened, and have a drive or
two to get them scattered a bit, and then walk
them up decently and in order, and dust their
jackets for them to rights. We drove swarms
of birds in front of us, at first scarcely getting a
36

Of an Old 'Un

shot, then ran hard round them and got them
back again, and there was very soon a change in
the spirit of their dream, and the bag began to
swell visibly. Then came a fairly productive
drive or two. It's not easy to put birds to only
two guns, but it helped the nefarious mana^uvres,
and when we reached home, as the stable clock
struck four, our host met us at the door.

" Well ! Got your twenty brace ?"

" Rather, and more too ! "

" Not thirty then .? "

" Rather ! Lots more, lots ! Jump ever so
much higher."

" Confound it ! You haven't got fifty ? "

Here his face became as long as my arm and
he looked exceedingly glum.

To cut a long story short, when our bag was
laid out all nice and pretty and comfy on the
grass in front of the hall door, it totalled sixty-
nine brace and a half, although you may not
believe it. (Stranger, do you think I'd imperil
my immortal soul for the sake of one canvas-back
duck ?) But as our host very solemnly sought
the interior of the house we heard him mutter,

" D d poachers ! never again, by Jove ! never

again ! " and we never did. Not a dog's chance !
But I tell you the game was anyhow worth the
candle that particular journey.

Partridge driving ? Yes ! And there are very

Sporting Recollections

many different descriptions of that same. Just
put these two invitations side by side and see
which you fancy. " Dear John, " runs the first,
" we are going to have a partridge drive or two
on the loth and iith October. I hope you'll
be able to come along. You'd better be at the
house at 9.30, for I can't tell what our plan of
campaign will be till I see what the wind is like."
And here is the second : " Dear Mr. Smith, we
hope you will be able to join us for some part-
ridge driving on the 8th and 9th of October.
We meet at ten o'clock at the house, and shall
go to the windmill on the top of the Hangman's
Hill to begin."

You accept both invitations. What is the
result .'' When you arrive at the house in re-
sponse to the first, you at once enter a big car
that is waiting at the door and drive off to the
up-wind boundary of your host's shooting.
There you find your loaders waiting, and with
the words " Very pussy, please," the boss at once
leads you all off to stand No. i. You have al-
ready drawn for places while in the car, and
know where to go, and not a word louder than a
whisper is spoken. Let me here call attention
to the fact that on t/iis shoot you will never see
a soul sitting under the hedge in front of the
guns, and you may generally observe that when
partridge driving is the order of the day, our
38

Of an Old 'Un

host prefers that skirts, even the shortest and
most graceful, shall be conspicuous by their
absence, for well he knows that Jim's barrels will
be discharged with much less than their accus-
tomed accuracy when Mabel's eyes are bent on
him, and that nothing on the face of the earth
can keep Billy's sister's tongue quiet even when
the best drive of the day is in progress, and
silence is indeed even more golden than usual.
On this shoot all is ordered well and there is no
discussion between the boss and his head keeper.
Everything was settled between them hours ago,
and both know their work without a thoujrht.
Unless there come a severe change of wind they
both know beforehand where every drive of the
day will be, and while our host sees to his guns
the head keeper takes care of his drivers, and
most excellently well he does it, as the bag at
the end of the day amply testifies.

Now turn we to shoot No. 2, a very different
but far from uncommon affair. When we arrive
at the house we are taken into the hall of the
palatial establishment and are introduced to two
or three of the guns. What strikes us, I might
almost say strikes us blind, most strongly about
these is the variety and alarming brilliance of
their neckties and waistcoats. It is exceedingly
plain that not one of these be-necktied and be-
waistcoated ones was ever intended for a mighty

sporting Recollections

hunter before the Lord. We dawdle about and
are offered drinks which are generally accepted
and consumed, and at last we are driven away to
the windmill on Hangman's Hill. When we
arrive there we find a drove of keepers in
gorgeous array and coloured collars, and the
head keeper indeed with gilt buttons. O Lord !
Then, it being already eleven o'clock in the day,
our host proceeds to have a long interview with
this head keeper as to the first drive. They
neither of them, I may observe, know more
about driving partridges than partridges know
about driving them. We are at the most
northerly point of our host's shoot, and not
unnaturally, the rendezvous having been settled
on a fortnight ago, there is a gale from the
south. " Never mind, we must try it," we hear
our host observe as he leaves his keeper and
returns to us. We are all taken off up wind
half a mile or more and posted behind a most
excellent hedge — excellent, that is, if only the
wind had been in exactly the opposite direction
— and from this exalted point of observation we
shortly begin to see partridges streaming away
to the right and left of the drivers and dis-
appearing far away behind them in the distance,
lost to us for the day. Result of the first drive,
nil ! And so on all through the remainder of
that weary day. We fought the wind manfully
40

Of an Old 'Un

the whole time and were routed utterly, horse,
foot, artillery, army service corps, hospital, and
boy scouts. I think our demnition total was
seven brace, and upon my soul I wonder we got
even so many as that. Had we begun at the
other end of the shoot, with even moderate
shooting and management we might have bagged
quite eighty to a hundred brace. But (big
" but," please, Mr. Printer) I apologize most
humbly to our worthy host for forgetting per-
chance by far the most important part of the
entertainment. We did indeed have a lunch
that was most excellent — nay more, perfectly
gorgeous in its immensity and grandeur, and —
under the circumstances an uncommonly lucky
thing — took at least two hours over it. It was
better sport than standing in a beastly cold wind
and getting scarcely one shot in two hours.
Yea verily ! there are indeed many and varied
descriptions of partridge driving.

A propos of shooting luncheons, a lady of my
acquaintance once asked if I could tell her of
a good luncheon dish for shooting parties. I
replied. Yes! I could, a dish one didn't often see
— sausages and mashed potatoes. She sniffed,
and with her nose in the air, assured me that
nothing would induce her to allow such a
plebeian thing to be put on her table. Now in
reality that good woman was a very common

Sporting Recollections

person indeed — the ill-mannered daughter of a
small Nonconformist parson who had married a
snob with sacksful of shekels. She carried more
airs and graces than even Lady Midas herself,
or a Gaiety girl who had married a marquis.
Sausages and mashed potatoes indeed ! But I
recovered from my rebuff, and bethought me of
the day when 'Arriet told me " I worn't no
gentleman," because I prevented the inebriate
'Arry from " 'itting 'er over the 'ed with 'is
brolly."

I think the most interesting partridge driving
in which I have borne my part has been in the
well-wooded regions of West Kent. The bags
indeed have not been phenomenal, although it
has very often been my good fortune to assist in
the making of bags of fifty to a hundred brace.
But the shooting is exceedingly varied, and in
many places so difficult, that not infrequently
every bird killed is a victory. Imagine yourself
standing on a late October morning behind a
hedge in which are oak trees but short distances
apart on which the foliage, mottled brown and
dying, will soon be fluttering to its grave in the
autumn breeze. Hark ! A whistle and whirr of
wings, and the shrieking birds are upon you
under the boughs of the oak. They whirl away
right and left, and if, as they twist off from you
and sail away down the breeze with the mottled
42

Of an Old 'Un

oaks for the background, you can knock out
your brace with any degree of regularity, then
indeed are you worthy to have M.G. (Master of
the Gun) annexed to your patronymic.

I have very often thought, and indeed said,
that a man who can with regularity kill driven
partridges in an excessively wooded country can
kill anything. Indeed I have not infrequently
noticed men whom I have seen shoot driven
partridges in Norfolk and Suffolk, when coming
over a treeless hedge twenty feet high in streams,
and all flying at exactly the same height and
pace, with the utmost regularity and precision,
and scarcely missing a bird, fail sadly in their
efforts to make good work at our birds in West
Kent as they twisted and twirled among the
brown oak trees.

In this part of the world we often enjoy what
to me is a most exceptionally delightful form of
sport towards the end of the season in pursuit of
cock pheasants and partridges. If, as is frequently
the case, the coverts and shaws, as they are called
in our part of the world, are not large they are
always taken in one beat. What can be more
delightful than to find oneself on a bright winter
day with the sun behind one at the end of a
thirty-acre covert, with a pal who knows his
work on each side.? Hark! There is the whistle
to start the beaters, and we are instantly on the

sporting Recollections

alert. Soon there is a rustle on the dry leaves in
front of us, and we see a poor hare poke her head
through the end of the wood and look about her.
We are right in front of her and the blind beetle
doesn't see us, and makes a dash across the open.
Poor beast ! Let her go ! We turn our head the
other way and pretend not to see her, for we
have been told to " shoot hares, please, there are
too many left." I hate shooting hares ! But
that is another story. " Woodcock forward !
Woodcock forward ! " comes ringing to us
down the covert. Here he comes straight to
the gun on our right. But at the very moment
the trigger is pulled the cock twigs him and
swerves off like lightning, leaving an ounce of
shot two feet behind his tail. No good, my
friend ! Your time has come and you are bang
in the middle of the second shot from those
deadly barrels and lie prone on the grass. Then
come some partridges that have been running
on in front of the beaters, and get up in twos
and threes and suffer accordingly. Then a
whole covey comes on, some among the trees,
some over them, giving shots that when we kill
them clean make us feel like the dwellers on
Olympus. Last of all are the old cock pheasants
that we have seen dodging about in front of us
and trying to hide in brambles and stubs and
getting into the ditch outside in the hope of
44

Of an Old 'Un

dodging back, past the beaters. A few fly back
and make decent shots for the back guns, while
the rest are driven forward to us and come into
the bag, for they do not require a conjurer. But
they must be killed, and at this time of year our
object is to kill many superfluous cocks and not
to pull down high rocketers from the heavens.

Last scene of all ! " Come out, you little
beggar, and join in the sport," says a beater, as
he pokes out a wretched little bunny, who had
hidden in an ash stub. And out the poor little
beggar comes and scoots away across the open
to his doom. " I saw that in Punch^' says the
reader. Very likely he did. I believe it was
published in that periodical. Nevertheless that
yarn is my very own private property and hap-
pened under my own nose, and indeed it was
I who shot the " poor little beggar " at a shoot
I was managing some years ago at a place
called Combe Bank in Kent, which at the time
belonged to a very great friend of mine, who not
uncommonly goes by the name of " The Pieman."

I have thought since that the slaying of that
unfortunate rabbit was a far from ladylike action
on my part. The " little beggar " had already
been greeted with a most unparliamentary epithet
from the beater, and should surely have been
allowed to scuttle off free without further
molestation either lingual or lethal. Sorry !

^^""^ %

J? ?^~^' ^' o

<//uS8riu.

Sporting Recollections

Far be it from me to say unkind things or
even to think them of one for whom in the past
I have felt such true affection in my breast, viz.
the sport of walking up partridges. I could
almost find it in my heart to sigh over the
hundreds — I might almost say thousands — of
delightful days in the past, when with cheery
companions I have walked the stubbles, the
turnips, the clover and the " short cut " in half
the counties of England, to say nothing of many
in Scotland, in pursuit of those dear little brown
birds, and found delight and good sport therein.
Where are those cheery companions now ? Alas !
almost all lying quiet and peaceful beneath the
sod in God's acre, scattered far and wide over
the world, while ocean's depths hide a few
brave spirits from our mortal gaze until the sea
shall give up her dead.

Thirty or forty years ago, whenever I was in
England, it was a rare thing to miss shooting
for more than a day or two during the whole of
the month of September. Times are changed
indeed. Were I now-a-days to receive an invi-
tation to shoot partridges by any method other
than driving, I should be just as much surprised
as would be the case were I bidden to sit with
a friend in the gloaming in the dyke back and
shoot sitting grouse as they picked up their
evening meal from the stooks. What a charm

Of an Old 'Un

there was about it all nevertheless, what endless
enjoyment ; and while I look back on the days
when as a boy I went forth with my gun, day
after day, on the very limited little manor over
which I was allowed to roam in the hope of
hunting down and securing a brace or two of
partridges, I am quite certain that such methods
were very much more likely to implant in the
youthful breast a desire for true sport, for know-
ledge of woodcraft and for close observation of
the ways of all living things, than is the educa-
tion of the young of the human species of the
present day. I gravely fear the chief, almost
the only, desire of most young sportsmen of
these times is a big bag and lots of shooting.
Tell me how many out of ten sportsmen of
rather immature age could tell you, at a glance,
at the end of an October day's partridge driving,
which were young birds and which were old,
which were cocks and which were hens.

The last time that I remember seriously walk-
ing up partridges was in Aberdeenshire about a
quarter of a century ago and during the month
of November. There were heaps of birds and
they were anything but wild. Near the coast
not far from Peterhead we first of all drove the
birds from the arable land down to the bents
fringing the North Sea ; then formed our line
and walked along parallel with the coast. The

Sporting Recollections

bents were fairly thick, and also prickly I have
noticed, and the ground was exceedingly uneven,
and it was no uncommon thing as one topped
a rise to come right on the top of a covey.
There were, moreover, many most sporting
driving shots at birds that had risen far away
along the line and were speeding back to their
home ground. Rabbits too at almost every step
were dashing back to their holes through the
bents like lightning, giving most excellent sport
and at the same time providing most satisfactory
lessons in very rapid shooting. It was indeed
pretty work and real sport. Filling a heavy
crop of almost knee-high turnips in a fifty-acre
Norfolk or Hampshire field with partridges,
and then half-mooning it with seven or eight
guns and a drove of beaters, is, I am afraid, a
class of sport which but little appeals to me.
True, the guns on the flank do get a few pretty
driving shots, which to them are pleasant no
doubt, but to be in the middle of the line and
when birds rise near you, and you have to shoot
straight at their rumps and then see them fall
amidst half a bushel of feathers, makes me feel
rather as if I had been shooting at my elderly
female relations when they weren't looking. I
know I have heard the word " plugging " applied
to this class of shooting. I fancy there was yet
another word which has been joined neatly on
48

Of an Old 'Un

to the "plugging," but I forget what it was.
Well, well ! there are some few things that are
best forgotten.

Yes, indeed ! I can well remember days
without number when I was young, and all was
couleur de rose, when I was more than contented
with the sport of walking up partridges. Con-
tented, do I say .'' did I not verily deem it sport
for kings, nor dream that anything in the way
of sporting could be more utterly delightful.
The year 1859 was one of the very best years
for partridges I can remember, for on the first
of September, in a bad country for them and on
a farm of only two hundred acres, one of my
brothers and I got not far short of twenty brace.
The next year, i860, was a perfectly disastrous
season. It rained the whole summer through,
and as from May to August I was playing
cricket nearly every day, only too painfully well
can I recall how mournfully we sat day after
day in dripping marquees, for pavilions were as
yet almost unknown, and watched the puddles
around the wicket gradually assuming the pro-
portions of miniature lakes. That September I
shot but one day. It was on a very pretty little
shoot called Henden, and on that ground where
the year before three of us had shot over thirty
brace one day early in the month the same three
managed to secure exactly three old birds, and

E 49

Sporting Recollections

indeed not one single young bird did we see.
I was once walking up partridges under that
mighty old chalk pit well-known to fame on
Westerham Hill, scene of endless hill-climbing
competitions, and I might truly add of disastrous
and fatal accidents. In the days I am writing
of there were no motors, indeed I don't think
there were even boneshakers. There was no
tarring of roads, and the poor trout in the lovely
little Darent that had its birthplace under yonder
lordly beeches in Squerryes Park there below us
and rippled away untainted to "join the brim-
ming river," Father Thames, were as yet not
seen gasping on the surface, moribund, for lack
of their wonted clear stream, or dead on the
edge of it, asphyxiated by the filthy, defiling
muck that had been thrust upon them. Darell-
Brown, to whom I bow, and one Tom Patterson
and I were the party. Tom was middle. He
was a good shot and usually a fair and generous
one. But that day something had gone wrong
with the works, his stockings were wrong side
out, or stale cucumber was doubling him up, or
he was in love perchance. Anyhow there was
something entirely wrong with him, for he was
shooting in disgraceful style, neglecting his own
birds and letting drive at those which were not
his, right across us both, and this was making
a considerable difference to our bag. We two
50

Of an Old 'Un

outside guns had a little quiet conversation, at
the end of a field, which Tom did not take part
in, and we proceeded to a field of clover, into
which we had scattered quite a nice lot of birds.
Very soon two rose at Tom's feet, and while
Darell-Brown gave his attention to one 1 looked
after the other, and they both fell dead not ten
yards in front of Tom's nose. He looked round
at us but said nothing. As far as was possible
in that clover field we took every bird away
from him. He had something to say about it
when we had finished out the field, and we let
him have his say. Then we explained matters
and impressed upon him that if he went on
bagging, or trying to bag, our birds he'd get the
worst of it, for we were two to one. He saw
the error of his ways, and expressed his sorrow.
There was much peace, and for the remainder
of the day he never looked at a bird that wasn't
his own. About the same time and on the same
chalky range, but under Madams Court Hill
this time, I was shooting with Willie Tonge of
Morant's Court, the father of poor " Jacky "
who played so successfully for Kent many
seasons. Alas ! they both are lying peacefully
enough now, poor dear fellows, under the waving
elms in Chevening churchyard. Willie and I
had a charming day, and I remember we got
twenty-one and a half brace, which wasn't bad ;

E2 . 51

sporting Recollections

but there were two things on that occasion that
are vividly impressed upon my memory. The
first is, that we did not once in the course of the
day shoot at the same bird or take one that was
not legitimately our own. The second was this.
I may here remark that we had both been shoot-
ing well, Tonge, as was almost always the case,
especially so, for he was a very fine shot. A
covey rose in front of us and received our four
barrels. " Make a brace ? " queried Willie.
" No, only one," was the reply. " Then why
the devil didn't you make a brace .? " and answer
was there none.

Another day close by, but on a different shoot
in the same well-known and beloved Holmesdale
Valley I had, alas ! alone, a very satisfactory little
day at a place called Combe Bank, which has
been mentioned before in connection with a
certain rabbit. My entertainer and cousin on
that occasion and a tenant of one aforesaid
"Pieman" — yes, verily! and times without
number on others — was Count de Baillet, one of
the most absolutely charming of men, most
delightful and hospitable of hosts. I don't think
I ever saw that dear good man look quite as
happy as when, seated at his own table, he was
surrounded by a party of sportsmen who were
going to shoot his coverts next morning. More-
over he never shot. My first acquaintance with
52

Of an Old 'Un

him was very soon after my ten years' absence
from home in Africa and commenced in 1884,
and on my part indeed most assuredly, and I
venture to hope on his also, soon ripened into a
warm friendship which, I am thankful to say,
still continues unabated. He was then the
tenant of Chiddingstone Castle, which belonged
to our cousin. Colonel Streatfeild. I had been
summoned to join in a few days' covert shoot,
and we were indeed a cheery party. Before we
started in the morning our dear old host took
me on one side and said that to his sorrow he
had noticed at dinner the previous evening that
I drank nothing stronger than water, that he
couldn't bear to see any guest at his table with
an empty glass. Would my principles not allow
me to take a few glasses of champagne, for it
would please him very much .? I assured him
that principles I had none beyond a very strong
desire to keep fit and well, but that, having
resided so long in a hot country, I had wholly
got out of the way of drinking anything that
was stronger than coffee or tea, but, at the same
time, that I was prepared to change my habits
at once at his bidding, and was more than willing
when dinner-time came along to walk into his
" fizz," so that he should have no further cause
of complaint. I fancy he was quite contented
with the way in which I bore my part. At any

Sporting Recollections

rate I have had the great pleasure of sitting at
his table many hundreds of times in the last
eight-and-twenty years, and I can testify that on
no single occasion has that dear man found any
fault with me over an empty glass, nor with the
manner in which I gave it my attention when
full. I remember well on that night in Novem-
ber 1884, that I tried to assuage a thirst which
had been steadily accumulating for more than a
dozen years. The tap on hand was Ayala 1874.
I found it a most refreshing and palatable drink.
But to return to my solitary day at Combe
Bank. It was at the beginning of October.
My host never carried a gun himself. All
the more honour to him then that he so
delighted to provide sport for his friends. It
was, so said my host, merely just a " larder
shoot " and not nearly good enough to ask any
one to join me. I assured him that it was
amply good enough for any " sportsman " — nay,
more, I told him I was certain we could make
a very decent bag indeed. But his ideas were
on a large scale, and so I had to take my way
alone, as far as guns went, but I had a keeper
and two good men to help me. I knew we
should get a few outside pheasants, but for them
I cared but little. What " sportsman " does
care for early October pheasants ? But there
was a fair show of partridges, wild but hitherto
54

Of an Old 'Un

unshot at, and they were the beggars I wanted
to catch. There were some ten acres of raspberry
canes in an eligible situation, with a nice (or
nasty, perhaps, from a fruit-grower's point of
view) rough weedy bottom. If only I could harry
the birds about a bit, and then get them into
those raspberry canes, I felt quite certain I could
make them suffer. I did. We worked very
hard and the men walked up most manfully.
They fairly earned the somewhat liberal supply
of beer that I sent for as we were laying out our
bag in the stable-yard at sunset. It was twenty-
two brace of partridges, nine or ten pheasants, a
couple of hares, and two or three rabbits — total
fifty-nine head. With a good shot and a good
walker to help me it would have been well over
a hundred head, and surely that is plenty, except
for an utter glutton.

Once upon a time in Aberdeenshire we were
engaged in walking up partridges. We had
driven a very good lot of birds into a field of
roots nearly half a mile long, but not more than
a hundred yards broad, and furrows running, not
unnaturally, lengthways. We walked that field
out along the drills more slowly than ever
marched funeral procession, and of course getting
scarcely a shot. Naturally the birds ran on
along the drills in front of us the whole way
down the field and, when they reached the end,

Sporting Recollections

nipped over the hedge in twos and threes, in
half-dozens and dozens, rejoicing greatly. Now
our worthy host, who was rather cross, had a
good deal to say. He had read that when you
have got your partridges into cover, you cannot
walk them up too slowly. Rubbish ! When
you are compelled to walk with the drills —
never do it if you can possibly avoid it — go just
as hard as you can lick. Better still. Before
ever the guns go into the field at all send three
or four men in at the other end. Let them
slowly walk twenty yards up the field and stand,
and it will do no harm if they wave their hand-
kerchiefs on sticks, and this also serves to remind
oblivious guns of their presence. Best of all,
drive the field out, having posted your guns
behind the hedge at the end. All this is written
as to walking up partridges and in no way
applies to affairs when birds are really wild.
Then indeed we know well enough how to
handle them. But, after all, as I think has
been remarked elsewhere, walking up partridges,
except under peculiar circumstances, is dead and
buried, and a good thing too.

CHAPTER III

Grouse shooting over dogs — The Cuchullins in the distance
— The " Dragooner," the writer and a keeper — Five guns
to one dog, the best sprinter annexes the shooting — Bob
and shove-halfpenny — Folk who count their shots, kills
and misses, how do they do it ? — A rough shooting — In
the old Clansman to Ardlussa — A month m Jura — Wood-
cocks— A yeld hind — O Lord ! two yeld hinds ! —
Curtain — Deerhounds, Cavack — A magnificent chase in
Jura.

There is an infinite charm in shooting grouse
over dogs, but the shooting itself is the sn:iallest
part of the pleasure. Watching the dogs at
work is to me by far the most interesting part of
the entertainment, the actual shooting of the
birds is assuredly the least so. What earthly
pleasure can be derived by a sportsman in the
plastering of birds which, so tame are they at
times, as we have all seen early in August in the
Western Islands — aye, and elsewhere too — that
they have to be whipped up from the heather
by the dog man .? There are, indeed, all sorts
and conditions of shooting grouse over dogs. I
can look back with infinite pleasure to many
most delightful days when all went well, so well
indeed that one felt almost inclined to exclaim,

Sporting Recollections

in the words of the poor little girl who died in
such perfect peace nearly fifty years ago —

" Linger," I cried, " O radiant time, thy power
Has nothing more to give ; life is complete
Let but the perfect present hour by hour
Itself remember and itself repeat."

Yes ! I shut my eyes and instantly in imagina-
tion comes before me a scene, surely as fair as
any on earth. It is evening, and as we rest on
the braeside, before trudging home in the
gloaming, we see those lovely CuchuUin Moun-
tains spread before us. The setting sun throws
the very deepest, blackest shadows among the
rocky kloofs and gorges, while here and there
he casts a lingering glow on the highest peaks.
Could aught be more exquisite ? But away !
The sun is gone, and if we would not break our
legs before we reach the lodge, we should be far
on our way before night closes down on the
scene. The " Dragooner " and I had been told
off to a good beat for the day that had not as yet
been shot over, and were looking forward to a
real good day. At the last moment, however,
our good host told us the plans had been changed.
His head keeper had told him he could not allow
the " Dragooner " and me to have the first day
on that beat or there would be but little left for
our successors. We would sooner have gone
58

Of an Old 'Un

without the compliment than without the shoot-
ing ; but when we heard that we were to be
relegated to a beat that had already been shot
over three times and had none too big a stock
left on it, our feelings towards the head keeper
were anything but those of affection. Neverthe-
less we had a most delightful day, far more
enjoyable, I fancy, than we should have had on
the unshot beat, where we should have found
the birds the tamest of sitters. We elected as
far as was possible to knock the very stuffing
out of our beat. We walked very hard indeed
and the ghillies did their level best to help us.
There was no whipping up of tame birds that
day, but the grouse chiefly walked up, flew well
and made sporting shots in a good breeze. As
we neared the lodge in the evening we were met
by our friend the head keeper.

" Well, gentlemen, what sport ? " he asked.
Now it is most strongly borne in on my mind
that the outside bag that villain expected us to
make was about five brace. When, therefore,
we replied nineteen brace and a half, his face
became almost as long as a cricket stump and
much about the same shape, and he said, " Nine-
teen brace and a half ? Why, they only killed
eight brace and a half last time."

" Just so. But then, you see, we know they
couldn't walk much, and strongly suspect their

Sporting Recollections

shooting wasn't a great deal better than their
walking."

" Nineteen brace and a half," went on the
angry man, " Why, you must have killed every
bird on the beat."

" Not quite ! All but one, we fancy. There
was one old cock beat us — he was what you'd
call 'joost a graund flier.' Last we saw of him
was about two miles off and one mile high, head-
ing straight for Portree. Perhaps you'd like to
go and herd him back again."

I never did like that keeper and was always
sure he was an outrageous humbug. I don't
think he liked either the " Dragooner " or me
that evening.

Now I wonder if any one of my readers has
ever helped to make one of a party of five guns
shooting grouse over one dog. I have done it
frequently, but only, so to speak, under one
ruler. I cannot believe it possible that there
could be two men in the world so utterly, hope-
lessly, brutally ignorant of everything connected
with sport who would perpetrate such an atrocity.
It was, nevertheless, marvellously amusing. The
prevailing sentiment among the party was, snaffle
all you can ! Shoot at everything that gets up,
especially grey hens (I never was present with
that crowd so late as the 20th August), and wait
for nobody ! When the dog got a point the
60

Of an Old 'Un

finest sprinter got up first, waited for no one, put
the birds up and blazed away. O ! but it was
a spectacle for gods and men to look on at. I
thank my God it is not in the very smallest
degree probable, nay, more, it is not possible, that
I can ever be found in such a battle again, neither
forefront, hospital, nor baggage wagon. I had
to obey orders in those days : Poor devil ! Quoth
the raven. Nevermore !

It was a most exceptionally wet day, even for
Skye ; the hills were blotted out and the rain
was coming down without ceasing. The river
was roaring through the glen, thick and im-
possible, putting even fishing out of the question.
Shooting was utterly hopeless.. So we were
scattered about in the smoking-room, some of
us trying to read more or less stale papers, one
or two looking hopelessly across the bay towards
Raasay, and all of us saying nasty things about
the usual weather in the Hebrides and of Skye
more particularly. Personally I was engaged
ruling a few lines with a pencil on a square-
sided deal table that stood in a corner of the
room. Now there are some of us who have
heard of a httle game called " Shove-halfpenny,"
but, on the other hand, there are a great many
of us who haven't. Also there are some of us,
especially those who have taken a great deal of
pedestrian exercise all over England, who have

Sporting Recollections

absorbed liquid refreshment, of sorts, in roadside
hostels, called by the initiated " country pubs."
Those among us who are of an observant nature
will have taken note that on the tables in the
bar-rooms of some of these " pubs " lines have
been traced, probably with a sharp fork, at right
angles to its sides. These lines form the " court,"
so to speak, on which " Shove-halfpenny " is
played. A certain line is chosen as the haven
where you would be, the combatants are each
armed with a penny, and their object after
placing their pennies — one at a time, please —
two-thirds on the table and one-third off it, is
to knock their penny with the flat of the hand,
in the manner we played " squails " in the past,
on to the line chosen, or as near to it as possible.
This game among the frequenters of " country
pubs," the village Hampdens and the mute
inglorious Miltons who have plodded their
weary way to where the open, though some-
what beery, portals, " far from the madding
crowd's ignoble strife," bid them welcome, is
usually played for pints, or even for pots, of
four ale.

Having thus, very feebly I fear, described
this humble and inoffensive game, let me return
to the Sconser smoking-room. I was practising
with a penny when to my side strolled one Bob,
and asked what on earth I was doing. I ex-
62

Of an Old 'Un

plained matters. Bob, although by no means
averse to a little flutter on any game of chance
or even on a horse-race, had never heard of
" Shove-halfpenny." Having had half a dozen
shots up the table with my penny, he exclaimed
with scorn —

" Well ! I do call that a rotten game. There's

nothing in it. Why any d d fool could play

just as well as any one else. Why, I'll play you
right now, old man, a bob a shot. Fire away ! "

" All right, Bob," I replied. " Probably you're
right, but at the same time it's possible you may
change your opinion."

The next remark of Bob's is indelibly impressed
on my memory, and this is how it ran —

" D n ! That's thirteen bob to you, and

thank you kindly. That's quite enough ' Shove-
halfpenny ' for me this round ; and if ever you
catch me playing the silly game along with you
again, you jolly well let me know. There's a
precious deal more in it than I thought."

"Well, Bob," I replied, "to tell you the
honest truth I rather fancied you'd come to that
conclusion before I'd done with you."

I notice in many of the sporting periodicals
letters from men who have the deuce of a lot to
say, not only about their guns, but, moreover,
about their individual performances with them ;
nay, more, they even go so far as to count their

Sporting Recollections

kills and misses — verily I am of the belief that
the latter very largely predominate — they even
count their shots, or say they do, and keep a
record of the whole thing. Now I am most
anxious to know how they do it, I am thirsting
for information as to how it is possible to come
to an accurate conclusion. Surely these sports-
men can fire but very few shots, and they must,
moreover, be more fortunate than most of us in
the way of losing — to put it politely — cartridges.
Now when we others go for a three or four days'
shoot, our gunmaker sends on to the place where
we are going to shoot what we consider the
requisite number of cartridges. We do not open
the boxes ourselves, nor do we fill our bags in
the morning, at any rate the people with whom
I have been so fortunate as to shoot do neither.
How, then, in the name of heaven, can a man,
unless he shoots on only the most insignificant of
shootings, keep a correct tally of what cartridges
go through his gun and what through dishonest
pockets. It is wholly impossible. I only shoot
now-a-days moderately, and very seldom get rid
of more than 3000 cartridges in the season, but
even with that very limited number it would be
next door to impossible to keep a correct tally
of the number of cartridges used, and of the
hits and misses ; not only impossible but, more-
over, utterly undesirable. Every one of us who
64

Of an Old 'Un

is a sportsman is well aware of whether he is
doing his duty properly by the birds that come
his way, and that is enough. He wants nothing
more. It is by no means uncommon when
there happen to be several of these gentlemen
who count their shots, on hand, to see two or
three of them " let go " at the same bird, which
eventually comes slanting down to Mother Earth
a couple of hundred yards off", runs like blazes to
the nearest hedge, and is eventually scrambled
into the bag by the help of a retriever and a
keeper. I want to know who of the three
" sportsmen " enters the bird in his record of
kills and misses, and whether they all three enter
it as a kill. I fancy it would not require a very
Machiavellian conjurer to point correctly to the
heading under which it would appear. Again,
after a day on which three hundred pheasants
had been killed, there would usually be a " pick
up " of from ten to fifteen birds next morning.
How many of these does the " counting man "
put to his own credit, or did he perchance
already count them and tick them off on his
beastly registering machine when he saw them
wobble away, hard hit in the rump, with the
feathers flying off them as they disappeared ?

What is usually described as " rough shooting "

does not, when existing in England at any rate,

appeal to me. It generally means a very few

f 65

Or t>

Sporting Recollections

shots of an exceedingly domestic nature at half a
dozen pheasants and a few rabbits hustled out of
hedgerows. This is a poor form of sport. One
sees in the advertisement columns of certain
newspapers, " Good rough shoot in Kent, Sussex
or Surrey as the case may be, of 400 acres, no
limit as to bag, rent ,^40." Well, we know that
if on this " good rough shoot " there yet exist
one old cock pheasant and one partridge that has
neither produced an egg nor helped to do so in
the present century, above ground, and under it
but one broad-faced, long-whiskered, flea-infested
old buck rabbit, these will be found on closer ac-
quaintance to be the only denizens of the domain.
But if, on the other hand, we are told of a good
rough shoot in the much bleaker and wilder
regions of Ireland, Scotland and the surrounding
islands, do not our pulses instantly bound through
their channels and does not our heart leap and
our eye glisten with the thought of many wild
fowl, an old blackcock or perchance even a
" caper " scudding away through the fir-trees,
and woodcock in dozens. Ah ! ye gods ! That
is rough shooting indeed ! Thankful am I that
even if never again such rough shootings fall to
my lot I have endless most glorious days to look
back upon.

Many years ago, soon after Christmas I found
myself steaming away on the old Clansman
66

Of an Old 'Un

round " The Mull," on my way to Ardlussa in the
Island of Jura, I was awakened at about three
o'clock next morning by a steward and told to
hurry up as we were opposite Ardlussa House,
but that there was as yet no sign of a boat. It
was inky dark, and for all that I, indeed, could
distinguish we might have been in the middle
of the Atlantic or anywhere else. The old
skipper was getting fussy and kept saying he
could wait no longer, and I was beginning to
wonder how on earth I should thresh my way
back along the coast from Oban, to which port
it appeared probable I was going to be carried
when, O be joyful ! a light was seen in the
distance, which soon after came dancing across
the waves. As the boat came alongside, even as
the steamer was beginning to forge ahead, I was
with but little ceremony, but by able and
willing hands, thrust overboard and heaved
among the stalwart vikings in the boat, who
were all, of course, McNeills, with my gun and
impedimenta on the top of me. The old
Clansman was swallowed up in the darkness
and in half an hour I was sitting drinking most
welcome hot coffee in the delightful halls of
Ardlussa, into which, alas ! I shall never more
find my way. I had indeed a glorious month,
and was out with my gun from daylight to dark
every day after something or other. I was not

F2 67

Sporting Recollections

allowed an entirely free hand, for what was the
use of bringing in more game than could be
consumed. But I shot all the waterfowl, wood-
cock and snipe that I could, which gave me most
ample amusement. About once in every week
my brother, who was my host, sent off to the
south a large box of game and rabbits, and the
day before its dispatch we always shot together
and made the best bag we could, and often went
far afield to the other side of the island to glens
called Glendebedel and Glengarressdale, from
which we could see the islands of Colonsay and
Scarba, and overlook the far-famed Corryvreckan,
concerning the terrors of which I suppose more
thrilling legends (to speak quite mildly) have
been set afloat than even about the Maelstrom
itself. These two glens were celebrated for
woodcock and, moreover, generally produced a
few absolutely wild cock pheasants. Our bags
when we went together were usually somewhat
on these lines : Three or four pheasants, same
number of duck, half a dozen snipe, a hare or
two, plenty of rabbits when near home, a curlew
or two and a dozen or fifteen woodcock. I
remember on one occasion my brother and I got
thirteen different sorts of game without, of course,
any grouse or blackcock.

Most unfortunately during that winter there
was no hard weather at all on the mainland to
68

Of an Old 'Un

drive the " cock " over to the islands, so of course
we didn't get a tithe of what have been shot
there. The old keeper at Ardlussa, " Ouilliam,"
used to make my mouth water with reminis-
cences of the woodcocks that had come over to
Jura in the past during prolonged frosts on the
mainland. Well do I remember an account old
"Ouilliam" gave me of a man who once spent
the month of January at Ardlussa after " cock "
and shot four hundred and sixteen ; and, added
" Ouilliam," " He was sair auld and he couldna
shoot and he couldna walk. If you and your
brither yon had been here then, man, we'd 'a' had
weel ower a thoosand."

All I can say is that I most deeply regret that
I and " my brither yon " were not there. But
in spite of those hecatombs of woodcocks in
Jura, I firmly believe that the adjacent island of
Colonsay is distinctly better. The accounts I
have heard of " cocks " in that island fairly
make me tremble. Indeed, from what I have
seen myself, and I have shot on Colonsay a good
deal, as the haunt of woodcock the two islands
cannot be compared. Colonsay contains wooded
glens that are a perfect dream of delight as
covert for woodcock. At the top of one of
these glens a lady once stood gun in hand and
the little corrie was beaten out to her. She had
twenty-seven easy shots and never touched a

Sporting Recollections

feather. There ! Would you Hke to have stood
in her place, O my brother sportsman ? She
told me about it herself and I have not the
slightest reason to doubt her veracity.

Ardlussa in those days was not, as is now the
case, wholly deer forest, but my brother had
killed many stags there and I am thankful to say
it is still my happy lot to wander frequently in
halls on the sides of which many a lordly head
looks down, and is evidence of his prowess, for
he was indeed a deadly shot. He sent me out
one morning with old " Ouilliam " to get a yeld
hind and impressed upon me most strongly that
under no possible circumstance was I to shoot
more than one. I can hear — " in my mind's eye,
Horatio " — as I write, " and not more than one,
young feller " (I was young in those days and
would I were so still), " as you value your life."
So away we went, Ouilliam and I, up into the
hills, right away up Glen Vachigan (I haven't
the slightest idea how it is spelt, but I remember
that it means the glen of the calf) and three-
quarters of the way across the island. Not long
after we started I jumped across what my com-
panion called a " wee bit burnie" and was met
instantly with the rebuff, " Man Frank " (pro-
nounced Marn Frarnk), " ye suldna dae that ;
aiblins ye'll be needing yon loup before ye gang
hame the nicht ; joost pit yer feet through the
70

Of an Old 'Un

watter and dinna loup." We saw no hind that
" Ouilliam " fancied till the afternoon, but then
we made out three, with a young stag accom-
panying, and my guide said that any one of the
three w^ould do. They were feeding away from
us up wind, and with much care we followed
them up into a little corrie below us and knew
we should get an easy shot against the skyline
as they passed over the opposite brae. I was
lying flat in the heather and had a remarkably
easy shot and felt perfectly certain I had shot
straight. Not so the trusty " Ouilliam," who
exclaimed, " A clean miss, ye didna touch her ;
rin, man, rin to yon rock down the brae, rin hard
and ye'U get anither shot as they pass ye on their
way across the glen." Rin I did, like blazes, and
got to the rock just in time to see the last hind
gallop past not sixty yards off, a broadside shot.
It required no conjurer to pull her over, and as
she lay stone dead before me I put up a silent
prayer that " Ouilliam " had been right about
that first shot and that it had indeed been a clean
miss. But I had very grave doubts. While he
was gralloching the hind I went off to make
assurance double sure as to that first shot.
What " Ouilliam's " idea of a " clean miss "
was I failed to understand, for O, horror of all
horrors ! when I topped the brae on which she
had stood, there in the heather not fifty yards

sporting Recollections

away lay the victim of the clean miss, shot
through the heart ; and I had to wend my
sorrowful way home and face the music. It
was to me an uncanny dirge indeed. I did cztch
it. The trumpet blew with no uncertain sound.
I think I deserved it, for I ought to have known
my shot was right and acted accordingly ; but I,
being young and in that class of sport at any
rate inexperienced, did not like to put my
opinion against that of such an experienced old
stalker as my companion. But it's too late,
nearly fifty years too late, to remedy the evil
now and to shed tears over that particular jug of
spilled cream.

Some years before the time of which I am
writing the McNeills of Colonsay and Jura had
been the owners of the breed of what were, I
believe, the most magnificent deerhounds that
ever existed. Two of these had been given to
my brother, and most beautiful creatures they
were. There was a gate in his stable-yard in
England fully seven feet in height, and it was a
picture to see one of them called Cavack sail
over that gate, gracefully just touching the top
of it, with the most perfect ease. It must indeed
have been sport worth a great deal of trouble,
watching two of those glorious hounds chase
and pull down an unwounded stag. Few
people read Scrope at the present day. I hope I
72

Of an Old 'Un

may be pardoned for reproducing an account of
his of how Buskar and Bran, which belonged to
my brother's father-in-law, Captain McNeill,
performed such a feat about eighty years ago
among the wilds of Ardlussa. The account
runs —

" No time was to be lost, the whole party
immediately moved forward in silent and breath-
less expectation, with the dogs in front straining
in the slips ; and on our reaching the top of the
hillock we got a full view of the noble stag,
who having heard our footsteps had sprung to
his legs and was staring us full in the face at a
distance of about sixty yards. The dogs were
slipped ; a general halloa burst from the whole
party and the stag, wheeling round, set ofFat full
speed with Buskar and Bran straining after him.
The brown figure of the deer with his noble
antlers laid back, contrasting with the light
colour of the dogs stretching along the dark
heath, presented one of the most exciting scenes
that it is possible to imagine. The deer's first
attempt was to gain some rising ground to the
left of the spot where we stood and rather
behind us ; but being closely pursued by the
dogs he soon found that his only safety was in
speed, and (as a deer does not run well up hill,
nor like a roe, straight down hill) on the dogs
approaching him he turned and almost retraced

Sporting Recollections

his footsteps, taking, however, a steeper line of
descent than the one by which he had ascended.
Here the chase became more interesting ; the
dogs pressed him hard, and the deer getting con-
fused, found himself suddenly on the brink of a
small precipice of about fourteen feet in height,
from the bottom of which there sloped a rugged
mass of stones. He paused for a moment as if
afraid to take the leap, but the dogs were so
close that he had no alternative. At this time
the party were not above 150 yards distant and
most anxiously waited the result, fearing from
the ruggedness of the ground below that the
deer would not survive the leap. They were,
however, soon relieved from their anxiety ; for
though he took the leap, he did so more cun-
ningly than gallantly, dropping himself in the
most singular manner so that his hind legs first
reached the broken rocks below ; nor were the
dogs long in following him ; Buskar sprang first
and, extraordinary to relate, did not lose his legs ;
Bran followed, and on reaching the ground per-
formed a complete somerset ; he soon, however,
recovered his legs and the chase was continued
in an oblique direction down the side of a most
rugged and rocky brae, the deer, apparently more
fresh and nimble than ever, jumping through
the rocks like a goat, and the dogs well up though
occasionally receiving the most fearful falls.
74

Of an Old 'Un

From the high position in which we were
placed the chase was visible for nearly half a
mile. When some rising ground intercepted our
view we made with all speed for a higher point,
and on reaching it could perceive that the dogs,
having got upon smooth ground, had gained on
the deer, who was still going at speed, and were
close up with him. Bran was then leading and
in a few seconds was at his heels and immediately
seized his hock with such violence of grasp as
seemed in a great measure to paralyse the limb,
for the deer's speed was immediately checked.
Buskar was not far behind, for soon afterwards
passing Bran he seized the deer by the neck.
Notwithstanding the weight of the two dogs
which were hanging to him, having the assis-
tance of the slope of the ground, he continued
dragging them along at a most extraordinary
rate (in defiance of their utmost exertions to detain
him (and succeeded more than once in kicking
Bran off. But he became at length exhausted ;
the dogs succeeded in pulling him down, and
though he made several attempts to rise, he never
completely regained his legs. On coming up we
found him perfectly dead with the joints of both
his forelegs dislocated at the knee, his throat
perforated and his chest and flanks much
lacerated. As the ground was perfectly smooth
for a considerable distance round the place where

Sporting Recollections

he fell, and not in any degree swampy, it is
difficult to account for the dislocation of his
knees unless it happened during his struggles to
rise. Buskar was perfectly exhausted and had
lain down shaking from head to foot, much
like a broken-down horse ; but on our ap-
proaching the deer, walked round him with a
determined growl and would scarcely permit us
to approach him. He had not, however, re-
ceived any cut or injury ; while Bran showed
several bruises, nearly a square inch having been
taken off the front of his foreleg, so that the
bone was visible, and a piece of burnt heather
had passed quite through his foot. Nothing
could exceed the determined courage displayed
by both dogs, particularly by Buskar, throughout
the chase, and particularly in preserving his hold
though dragged by the deer in a most violent
manner. This, however, is but one of the many
feats of this fine dog. He was pupped in the
autumn of 1832 and before he was a year old
killed a full-grown hind single-handed. The
deer was carried to the nearest stream, which
was at no great distance, for the purpose of being
washed ; which ceremony being performed we
sat down to lunch in great spirits."

CHAPTER IV

My host and nephew " S— M "— Oransay — Shooting of the most
varied description in Colonsay and Oransay—" Waller ! "
God bless his brown eyes and black curly coat — A trifle of
an upset at the edge of " the strand " one evening — Archie
appears nervous on wheels and also a little later on in a
boat — Oransay Priory and St. Columba — The McNeills
— The mermaids of Oransay, otherwise seals — Dhu Heart-
ach lighthouse — A very narrow shave for a shipwreck on
Eilan-nau-Rou — Everlasting wind — A sorrowful upset
thereby — S— M's crowners, /. r. Some of 'em — Hangman's
Hill and its ancient rocky gallows.

Exactly thirty-five years after that most charm-
ing winter visit to Ardlussa v^^hen my host was
my eldest brother,! found myself, accompanied by
my wife and daughter, on my way to the adjacent
island of Oransay to spend the whole winter
with that same brother's eldest son as our host.
In the Ardlussa days he was a tiny boy in the
nursery and far too small to come out with us
even near home or to go far from the shelter of
his nurse's wing. But thirty-five years make a
very considerable difference, and long before we
took our way to Oransay Priory the tiny boy
had developed into an exceedingly stalwart man
well over six feet high and had become as fine
and unselfish a sportsman as could be found in
England. A good man over a country, a fine

Sporting Recollections

shot and county cricketer, and an excellent fisher-
man. As a salmon fisherman I don't know a
better. Such was my host for the whole of the
winter months, and as he had been my host both
for shooting and fishing times without number
before, and I knew to the uttermost what
manner of man he was, I looked forward with
infinite pleasure to what I knew would prove
some of the most sporting experiences of my
life. The island of Oransay itself was rather
more than 2000 acres, composed of heather,
bents along the shore, and in some of the valleys
swarming with rabbits, and on the northern side
of the island rocky, heathery, bracken-clad banks,
beloved of woodcock. Over and above the
shooting on Oransay, S — M, as I will call him,
our host, had hired the shooting rights of the
south end of Colonsay from his uncle, the late
Sir John McNeill, about three or four thousand
acres, so we had quite as much as we could
manage.

The varieties of the bags we made were most
delightful. There were several coveys of par-
tridges near the house which could always be
found on the adjacent stubble, which we treated
with the most gentle and ladylike hand, leaving
certainly more than half of them behind us.
Frequently from the upper windows of the
Priory we saw on the same stubble rock pigeons
78

Of an" Old 'Un

that had come all the way from their homes in
the cliffs at the rocky north coast of Colonsay,
for a hard-earned feed, and then a stalk would
ensue and anon a pie. We found those pigeons
a most welcome addition to the larder. Bernicles
came along in numbers towards the middle of
October and, like the poor, were always with us,
but usually at a distance, for it is no easy thing
to get oneself within shot of the wily goose.
The fields on Oransay, mostly pasture land, were
divided by stone walls and, hidden by these, when
circumstances were favourable we had many a
successful stalk and, moreover, when the sky was
clear circumvented a few by driving in the
moonlight. A flock of Bewick's swans paid us
a visit and for many days were visible on the
strand between the two islands, but were never,
crafty beggars, in a position that made it possible
to get at them. It was at low tide quite easy to
walk dryshod from Oransay to Colonsay, some-
what less than a mile across the strand, but woe
betide you if you dallied too long and allowed
the incoming tide to steal a march on you, for
then must ensue a long, weary wait in the cold
of many hours. Truly we had a boat at a place
a mile or so away where the passage was deep
and not more than a couple of hundred yards
across, and this we utilized on some occasions,
I only once was caught at all badly by the tide,

sporting Recollections

and even then got across all right without swim-
ming. O, but it was cold ! and my poor retriever
" Waller " didn't like it at all and was very
thankful indeed when he touched bottom.
" Waller " has been a somewhat celebrated
character in his time, and is still exceedingly
well known on many of the shootings of West
Kent. But alas ! like his master his day is very
nearly over, and we find now that while even a
gentle ascent makes one of us " grunt and sweat
under a weary life," an old French partridge
with only a broken wing can clean outrun the
other. Never mind, " dear Waller," you and I
are both very fully alive to the fact that " every
dog must have his day," and by Jove ! we have
indeed had it to the full ; and now —

" When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown ;
And all the sport is stale, lad.

And all the wheels run down " —

No ! not even now will we " creep home and
take our place there, the maimed, the spent
among " ; nay, rather will we keep our flags
flying, and so long as our dear good friends bid
us welcome, struggle on manfully to the end, miss
our birds, tumble head over heels into ditches
with a smile, and enjoy everything just exactly
as long as God will let us.

"Waller's" career has been a very varied one.
80

Of an Old 'Un

He was born in the wilds of Namdalen and was
the pup of an old retriever of mine that I had
taken over to Norway for rypeshooting, and a
Norwegian setter, a good little lady from both a
sporting and domestic view. " Waller " and his
brothers and sisters had been given away before
our arrival at our Norwegian home in 1900.
One morn appeared a damsel of the country
leading on a bit of string a black retriever
puppy which she averred was no good ; so she
had brought him back again. I asked what
education they had proposed for the puppy, and
the reply was that it had been that of a goat-
herd. I am no sort of a judge of goat-herds or
indeed of goats, although I am prepared to swear
that on many braesides in the Hebrides, when I
have suddenly got their wind, I have nearly been
knocked backwards. I am also quite ready to
admit most freely that there are a great many
people who would be at no pains to hide the
fact that they are absolutely certain that it is
among the flock of goats rather than sheep
that my own future destination lies. I looked
" Waller " over and thought him quite a nice-
looking pup with an exceedingly intelligent face,
and I therefore elected to keep him myself and
commence his education forthwith. I have
never regretted it, and a most wonderfully use-
ful servant as well as a charming and affectionate
G 81

sporting Recollections

companion he has proved. I brought "Waller"
and a most lovely Norwegian elkhound home
together, although I must admit that what
with permits, rules, regulations, and, last, but not
least, quarantine, I had an infinity of trouble.
But that time also, at any rate, the game was
well worth the candle. Moreover, at the end I
managed to get a little fun out of the quarantine
arrangements. To me one evening, grunting,
perspiring, and mopping his face, entered Ser-
geant Dogberry of the Kent County Police.

"I am most truly sorry, sir, but I shall have to
summon you. There's no help for it. I saw
Miss Streatfeild in the village only a few minutes
ago with both your Norway dogs running free
and they had not even got muzzles on."

" You don't mean it. Sergeant. Can't any-
thing be done ? "

" Nothing, sir, nothing ! You know that as
well as I do. They shouldn't be out together,
and must not be in the road at all unmuzzled.
Surely you know all the regulations as well as I
do."

" Better, Sergeant, I think. But you're quite
sure nothing can be done for me to avoid being
summoned?"

" Nothing, sir. It's quite impossible. I'm
really very sorry, but I must do my duty and
report the case."
82

Of an Old 'Un

" Well, if you must, you must, of course," I
went on. " But suppose I had a document in
my pocket which set the dogs free from quaran-
tine by order of the Home Office, wouldn't that
make anv difference ? "

"Of course it would, sir, but that's impossible.
You couldn't have such an order without my
knowing all about it."

" Nevertheless, I have. Sergeant ! I got it yes-
terday, and here it is. So now you can cut along
and get your summons issued as fast as you like.
But half a minute before you go. Suppose you
come indoors and take a little light refreshment.
You look to me as though you rather wanted
it."

" Waller " developed into an exceedingly use-
ful retriever, and during the last twelve years has
saved me and my friends endless birds. The
setter blood in him has also made him most
useful. During the winter I shot in Colonsay
and Oransay he was invaluable, and was the
means of putting a great many woodcock and
many other pretty things into the bag. On three
occasions I saw him catch woodcock as they rose
from the heather. This seems almost incred-
ible, for the dog did not pounce at them on the
ground, but, on the contrary, stood perfectly
staunch at his point and as the bird quitted its
" seat " in the heather bounded at it, and, as I
G2 83

Sporting Recollections

say, on three occasions caught it. I will at once
confess that for rough shooting I infinitely prefer
a "general utility" dog to one that sits behind
you with manners that are perfect for church or
a prayer meeting, but for retrieving a real old
pedestrian cock pheasant who is quite capable
of running across a couple of fair-sized parishes
I prefer a generous and high-spirited dog. When
big days are on hand, personally I prefer to leave
my retriever at home for many reasons which
are obvious. When " Waller" was young, I
played golf a tremendous lot on a course called
Limpsfield Chart, near the boundary of Kent
and Surrey, which was in those days overgrown
with masses of gorse in all directions and in
which golf balls were lost in hundreds. What
more to be desired than a clever dog to retrieve
them .? I was looking on at a country cricket
match one day and " Waller " was lying at my
feet. A hefty smack to square leg deposited
the ball in the bowels of an adjacent wood in
which they sought it in vain. Then I was
approached and asked if my dog would find a
cricket ball. I replied that I had no idea, for I
had never asked him to try, but I added that we
would soon see. So I showed " Waller " a
cricket ball and told him to go into the wood
and seek. In a very few seconds he was out
again with the lost ball in his mouth. Then
84

Of an Old 'Un

I took him to Limpsfield Chart, and in a very
few days he was an absolutely perfect golf-ball
finder. He was simply unfailing, and at the end
of a day's golf we used usually to go round the
links together and retrieve balls that members
had lost, handing them over when we knew the
owners and chucking the rest into my locker.
I believe in the few years I played golf regularly
"Waller" put some thousands of golf balls into
my hands. I was once offered >^2oo for him by
an itinerant golf-ball searcher who made a good
living at it. My reply had better not be
chronicled. I feel quite sure my publisher's blue
pencil would supervene with no uncertain erasure.
The distance at which a dog with a good nose
can find a golf ball is scarcely credible.

Very often we drove across to Colonsay in a
farm cart, with a trusty old horse who knew the
passage across the strand uncommonly well, and
never seemed to mind the water a bit, even when
it was well up his sides and swashing about in
the bottom of the cart. There was a most
ridiculous scene one evening, and O ! how we
all did laugh. I except Archie, the ghillie, who
seemed to think it was no laughing matter and
took it very seriously. My daughter Evelyn,
S — M and I were seated side by side in front
with our guns between us and a rug over our
legs. Evelyn was driving. We had just come

Sporting Recollections

through the strand and were ascending the shore.
S — M was in the deuce of a hurry for his tea,
or at any rate was, or seemed to be, in a hurry for
something or other, and seized the whip out of
Evelyn's hand and, taking it by the middle, hit
the fat old horse with the butt end a fell stroke
across the rump. The trusty animal — unlike
salmon — being all unused to the butt on that
part of his person, gave one tremendous grunt
and bounded clean out of all the harness, which
was indeed most abnormally rotten, and retired
to a respectful distance, still grunting. Well, not
unnaturally, the shafts went straight up into
the air, and before we could have said even
"Jack" not to mention " Robinson," we three
found ourselves flat on our backs in the road, the
rug still over our legs and our guns still in statu
quo between us. Archie, the game and the dogs
were freely scattered all over the place, and
Archie with sorrowful face declared he was " sair
birzed and churted," but I fancy he was only
frightened a bit, and the Lord only knows why,
for there was no cause for anything but peals
of laughter. Why, even the trusty " Waller "
laughed, but I have always fancied that good
dog had a very strong sense of humour. We
got up by degrees, collected Archie and the
game, the dogs and the old horse, who hadn't
gone far and was still grunting, and then
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Of an Old 'Un

S — M calmly remarked, " Look here, ' Old
'un,' Babe (that's Evelyn) and I will go on
and order tea, and you and Archie can just
patch up the harness and bring the rest of the
kit along." And that, I presume, was what
S — M would call a fair division of labour.
On another evening I was returning from
Colonsay by the boat passage, alone in the dark,
and I had two dogs with me. It was blowing a
full gale, with sleet and snow on its wings, dead
in my face. The instant I got the boat
launched and put forth into the deep the dogs,
poor beasts, tried to cower down under the
shelter of my body, thereby continually stopping
the movement of at least one of my sculls, and
then of course round came the bow of the tub,
and instead of reaching our haven on the further
shore we were instantly blown back to the one
we had just quitted. Moreover, the sculls were
not particularly robust, and even when I had
succeeded in getting the bow of the boat into
the eye of the wind, I dared not pull quite so
strongly as I would for fear of a smash, when
probably we should have been all drowned
together, and most assuredly I should have lost
for ever my beloved and trusty gun beneath the
waves on those rocky and somewhat treacherous
shores. Three several times did I get half-way
across the passage and was blown round and sent

Sporting Recollections

flying back again. But the fourth time, some-
how or other, we managed it and landed the
right side of the channel, and thence I blundered
my way home to the Priory. My wife told me
she had sent out to the farm bailiff to ask. if he
didn't think steps should be taken towards
finding me, to which he replied, very wisely,
that it would be no good, for if I had had any
accident in crossing between the islands, I should
at once have been blown straight across to Jura.
I remarked not far back that during a very
slight mishap we had with a horse and cart, one
Archie was somewhat unnecessarily perturbed
in his mind by the upset of the cart, and by
suddenly finding himself heaved out into the
road. I found on another occasion that the
perils of the deep had no greater charm for him
than those on shore. All round those rock-
encircled islands when in a boat, one has to
keep an eagle eye around for submerged reefs
and take very great note of the breakers that
are caused thereby, which suddenly rear up
a crested head many feet and may break into
your boat, and would inevitably swamp you.
These breakers seem at times to rise up quite
suddenly from an almost calm sea. I was once,
when after duck and snipe, approaching a small
island. Archie was rowing and we were waiting
an opportunity to beach the boat safely.
88

Of an Old 'Un

Suddenly one of these breakers rose near us and,
forming a crest, fell within very few feet of our
boat. Poor Archie turned as white as a sheet,
for no apparent reason, as we were close to the
shore. I cheered him up a bit and told him it
was quite all right, and that even had the wave
come on board it couldn't have hurt us as we
were so close to land. Archie looked at me
cannily and then merely made the remark, " I
canna soum."

Some slight description of that winter home
of ours will not be amiss here. The house itself,
Oransay Priory, was, at the time it was built, a
hundred and fifty years ago or thereabouts, with-
out doubt a most desirable abode and very
possibly kept out a great deal of wind and rain,
and during the summer I can well believe it was
not only most delightful in every way, but more-
over, to make use of the words of the house
agents, " an eminently attractive and charmingly
situated mansion." But when in the middle of
winter a south-west gale was raging round the
gables, when the rain was penetrating through
the roof in places without number, and when the
patches of wet on our bedroom ceilings, at first
the size of pocket-handkerchiefs, gradually as-
sumed the proportions of full-sized counterpanes
and began to drip with much regularity on to
whatever happened to be beneath, the "eminently

Sporting Recollections

attractive and delightful situation of the mansion,"
in the estimation of the ladies of the party at any
rate, appeared to leave a great deal to be desired.
Close by the house on the north stands the finest
lona cross that I ever saw, and near by the ruins
of the ancient Priory, which are most interesting.
There are many chambers, a chapel, a refectory,
and many a relic of the dim and distant past.
Stone coffins and sarcophagi on which here and
there one could decipher a letter or two and
perchance a number, but I was unable to dis-
tinguish any date. In a corner of the old chapel
were reposing peacefully a few skulls and other
remains of the ancient dead of past centuries.
For not only was Oransay Priory the last resting-
place of endless McNeills of ages ago, but also of
many a saint and holy one who had passed away
even before the time when St. Columba paid his
fleeting visit to Oransay. On the north side of
the Priory, and perhaps about half a mile off,
stands a huge blufF three or four hundred feet
high, having a nearly perpendicular side where
it faces it. St. Columba having fled away from
Ireland in wrath at the treatment meted out to
him by the wicked inhabitants of that green
island, came to the saintly people of Oransay,
which no doubt originally derived its name from
the holy Saint Oran, purposing to sojourn with
them for the remainder of his days. But ascend-
90

Of an Old 'Un

ing one day to the top of the bluff — it was
assuredly a clear day — there on the horizon far
away past the shores of Islay, far away in the
south-west he could distinguish the coast-line of
the hated Ireland near Malin Head, though what
it was called in the days of St. Columba the
present historian deponeth not. Finding then
that the detested land so lately quitted was still
visible from his elected home, he would none
of it, but shook off the pebbles of Oransay accu-
mulated in his saintly sandals in disgust, took
boat and passed forward in peace to the more
blessed regions of lona, where he lived, died and
was buried and lies in the company of monarchs
of Scotland, Ireland and Norway who on occa-
sions according to traditions — firmly believed in,
however, by the superstitious highlanders of
those regions —

"... stalk forth with sovereign power
In pageant robes and wreathed with sheeny gold,
And on their twilight tombs aerial council hold."

I remember reading many years ago a tale
under the heading "The Mermaid of Oransay. It
was a very thrilling story, but its details have
passed from my memory. The weird moaning
of the seals heard by night around the island,
particularly when more than usually stormy
weather was approaching from the Atlantic,

Sporting Recollections

would indeed go far towards the making of
legends, where the most imaginative superstition
among the islanders runs in their very blood,
and where almost every uncanny sound by night
is woven by them into some mysterious and
supernatural tale of the past. There were two
kinds of seal always with us at Oransay, the
common one [Phoca vkulind) in great numbers,
and a few of the great grey fellow {Halkhcerus
gryphus). There were always some of these on
the reef that ran out towards Eilan-nan-Ron from
the south point of the island. There was a very
large and splendid old fellow that I knew well.
Often have I rowed quietly and slowly to within
fifteen yards of him, and stared him in his grim
old face before he saw fit to roll off into the sea.
He was far the largest seal I ever saw in this
country. Long may he live and be the ancestor
of unnumbered progeny. Of course we never
shot any of the poor beasts. We had no quarrel
with them and they seemed to know it, for some-
times they came close to our boat and stared at
us with their beautiful great mild purple eyes.
I think their moaning was the most weird and
bewitching sound I ever heard. Many a time
have I stood at the door of the Priory at night
and listened to it as it came to my ears, rising
and falling in the wind across the waves. Well
might one fancy that such uncanny sounds could
92

Of an Old 'Un

only emanate from the drowned mariners who in
the past years had been cast into the depths below,
and from their hidden caverns were calling in
vain for peace.

In the burying-place of the Priory I noticed
the graves of one or two people that I had known
in the long ago, who had been buried there
comparatively lately. But I can think of no
McNeills of modern days, with one exception,
who have found their last earthly resting-place
among the scores of ancestors who must have
lain there for centuries and are still waiting for
the trumpet call. The one exception was the
last of the clan to own Colonsay, Oransay, Ard-
lussa, and Gigha, John McNeill. He was carried
to his rest across that island that I know so well
from the yacht that bore him north, since we
were there, and although I know the spot where
he is lying so intimately, in all human probability
I shall never look upon his grave. He was
indeed a man. As brave a soldier as ever drew
breath, a courteous gentleman and a cheery
generous comrade. I trow indeed that " after
life's fitful fever he sleeps well."

From the top of the high bluff behind the
Priory, if you look, on a clear day, in almost
the opposite direction to that in which St.
Columba did when he saw the coast of Ireland
for the last time, you will see, far away out in

Sporting Recollections

the Atlantic, a granite column rising above the
waves. That column is the Dhu Heartach light-
house, named after the rock on which it is built.
That solitary rock is but eighty yards long by
fifty broad. On a still day the Atlantic waves
do nothing more offensive than send spray forty
or fifty feet up the tower ; but, on the other
hand, often and often during winter gales have
I watched broken water in tons fiying right over
the top of the lighthouse, which is over one
hundred and fifty feet above high-water mark.
On the west there is nothing between the coast
of America and Dhu Heartach, and it is sur-
rounded on all sides by deep water, which
accounts for the stupendous size and force of
the waves from the Atlantic Ocean which in
times of storm fall upon it. The absolute neces-
sity for a lighthouse on Dhu Heartach had been
very well known to the authorities for many
years, but it had been found impossible to
undertake the erection of one until the year
1 867. To any one acquainted with these regions,
the vast importance of a light at the position
of Dhu Heartach, guarding as it does, to a very
great extent, the navigation of the Minch, the
entrance to the Irish Channel, and the Firth of
Clyde, must be abundantly apparent. Previous
to the erection of this light, there was a portion
of this most frightfully dangerous and rocky
94

Of an Old 'Un

coast of nearly fifty miles, /. e. from the light-
house of Skerryvore in the north to that of the
Rhinns of Islay in the south without a light of
any sort. Wrecks were, of course, in compara-
tively old days, of very constant occurrence, and
the hardy vikings of those regions were in the
habit of garnering a rich harvest of timber and
wreckage that was strewn all too frequently
along their inhospitable shores. If ancient
records be true, the fierce islanders were not
only exceedingly willing to accept everything
thrown up from the sea, in the shape of flot-
sam and jetsam that came their way, but were,
moreover, not averse to exposing misleading
beacons and false signals in order to lead the
unfortunate and unsuspecting mariners to their
doom. During nearly the whole of the winter
of 1902-3, that we spent at Oransay Priory, we
were kept in firewood of the best description,
in the shape of sawn pine beams that were cast
ashore in thousands, evidently from a Nor-
wegian vessel wrecked, God alone knew where
or how ! It must have been miles and miles
away, for no sign of the vessel or of those who
had sailed her ever appeared.

I was standing one day on the south point of
Oransay, and about a mile away from me was
a small rocky island called Eilan-nan-Ron with
surf raging round it, for it was, as was usual,

Sporting Recollections

wild weather. Suddenly I saw, for the only
time that winter, a vessel approaching from the
west. As she came near I observed that she
was almost battered to pieces, that her boats
were all carried away, and that her masts were
but remnants, and that on these she had a rag
or two of sail set and was crawling along before
the gale at, perchance, three or four miles an
hour. She approached the island and appeared
unable to steer away from it, and entered the
breakers surrounding it. Now, it so happened
that in a perfectly calm sea I had gone in a
small boat a few days before to retrieve a wild
goose that had fallen on the very spot where
that ship was now passing. I should have
deemed that it was utterly impossible for a brig
of over a thousand tons — as this wretched vessel
was — to have made her way unscathed through
that labyrinth of rocks and broken water. Never-
theless she did it. She forged her way on and
on through the breakers, while we — our whole
party collected by that time — aghast and spell-
bound watched her, expecting every moment to
see her crash into the rocks and go to pieces,
for indeed I well knew what merciless fangs of
rocks she had within but few feet of her on
every side. But no ! — she went through every-
thing without touching, and sailed into the
open water beyond and safety. She made her
96

Of an Old 'Un

way to Scallasaig Bay, where she anchored. We
ascertained afterwards that not only was she
almost battered to fragments and very nearly out
of provisions, but moreover that half the crew
were down with typhoid, and that, last of all,
there was not a soul among them who, when
they had passed the perils of Eilan-nan-Ron, had
any idea of where they had been, or who had
ever sailed those waters before. In due course
a tug came along from Glasgow and towed the
poor battered hulk away.

The lighthouse of Dhu Heartach was com-
menced in 1867 and completed in 1873. That
it took so long to erect will not be wondered at
when the stupendous difficulties that had to be
surmounted are taken into consideration. The
base of operations was perforce many miles
away — about fifteen — at Earraid on the Ross
of Mull, and from this place every stone, every
bit of iron, every bolt, had to be conveyed by
steamer. Not infrequently it was found, on
nearing the rock, that the sea was so wild that
no approach was possible, and all the cargo had
to be taken back to Earraid again. It will per-
chance somewhat surprise the reader to learn
that during the late autumn months and the
winter no work of any sort was possible — indeed
even to land on the rock at all was out of the
question. Even in the middle of summer the
H 97

Sporting Recollections

weather was not infrequently so wild that all
work had to be suspended. During the whole
of the year 1868 it was found possible to land
on the rock on thirty-eight days only. A
barrack was erected on the rock for the use of
the workmen. This consisted of a large iron
drum which was capable of housing, for sleeping
purposes, fully a dozen men. This drum was
erected on the top of an enormously strong
malleable iron framework. Now it must not be
forgotten that the top of this drum was seventy-
seven feet above high-water mark. During the
month of August 1868 an engineer and some
artificers landed on the rock in calm weather
to proceed with their work. This was on the
20th. A storm came on during the night, and
those wretched men — fourteen of them — were
closely imprisoned within the drum, sixteen feet
only in diameter, until the 26th. Imagine it !
While they were thus imprisoned, during the
height of the storm, and unable to descend to
the rock even for a moment, heavy broken water
frequently rose above the top of the barrack —
seventy-seven feet above high-water mark, and,
falling on it, wholly obscured all light for several
seconds. While these things were going on
over their heads, beneath them solid water was
dashing through the framework that supported
the barrack thirty-five to fifty-five feet above
98

Of an Old 'Un

high-water mark, and such was the force of the
waves that the hatch in the floor of the barrack
was burst up. What a truly awful situation !
And it must be remembered, at the same time,
that not yet had the barrack and its supporting
framework been proved by a storm and found
trustworthy.

The solid masonry of the lighthouse itself,
what we laymen would designate the foundation,
rises to 64 feet 4 inches above high-water mark.
Taking into consideration the awful power of the
storms of even summer, this enormous height
above sea level for constructing the entrance to
the lighthouse was not deemed excessive, although
compared to other and well known lighthouses
it seems very great. For instance, the height of
the solid masonry of the Eddystone is but 10 feet
3 inches ; of the Wolf 16 feet 4 inches ; of the
Bishop in the Scillies 23 feet, and of Skerry vore,
which although apparently situated in a position
which is equally exposed to the roaring Atlantic
billows as is Dhu Heartach, required a solid
foundation of less than half its height. Men of
science are of the opinion that the exceptionally
heavy seas that rage around and over Dhu
Heartach are caused by the formation of a sub-
marine valley at the head of which the lighthouse
stands. After a storm which came on during
July 1869 a landing on the rock was in due
H 2 99

sporting Recollections

course effected and it was then ascertained that
fourteen stones weighing two tons each which had
been firmly dovetailed into their positions with
Portland cement had been carried away, and that
eleven of them had been swept off the rock into
deep water, and this at a height of over thirty-five
feet above high-water mark. I could tell of many
more catastrophes and accidents to masonry and
machinery during the building of that lighthouse,
which has without a shadow of doubt been the
means of saving many a vessel and countless lives
from a watery grave. But to the infinite credit
of those concerned it should be stated that
through all those years from 1867 to 1873,
although surrounded by various and unnumbered
perils of all sorts both by land and sea, there was
not a single serious accident to life or limb. Even
now that the work has been completed for many
a long year and all has gone well, there are many
dangers still for those who tend the light and who
pass the greater part of their lives on that wild
and desolate rock. The relieving keeper is taken
every fortnight by steamer from Earraid and
landed on the rock. But such is the exposed
situation, and such almost without exception the
wildness of the sea, that the steamer has to be
anchored outside the surf and most cautiously
backed in towards the rock until the men and
provisions can be landed by means of a portable
100

Of an Old 'Un

derrick which is erected by the keepers on the
rock.

I shall in all human probability never again
look upon Dhu Heartach lighthouse, but the
remembrance of it will never fade away.
Whether I recall it as seen during a winter
storm across the raging waste of Atlantic waves,
with the wildly flying spray dashing far over its
head, or whether I think of it as I so often
welcomed its kindly beaming rays while wend-
ing my way across the hills towards home in
the gloaming, I shall always in my heart have
a kindly thought for Dhu Heartach, and for
its surroundings of such infinite beauty and
grandeur.

It will easily be gathered that wind, from the
gentle zephyr, a very, very rare visitor, that on
the occasional fine day graciously cooled the
brow as one climbed the heights of Hangman's
Hill after grouse, to the raging winter hurricane,
was a very large, nay more ! an enormous
factor during a winter in Oransay. There were
many days when shooting was out of the question,
when one could scarcely stand, and to traverse
those rocky uneven hills, gun in hand, would be
absolutely dangerous. I was coming home from
shooting one evening on which a fierce gale had
arisen. As I neared the Priory I was watching
my wife, whom I had observed taking an airing

101

sporting Recollections

(indeed it was an airing and a half), partly
sheltered by an adjacent wall. But to gain
the house she had to pass across an open space
to reach another protecting wall. Across this
space the wind blew in all its fury, but it was a
fair wind, if indeed any such blustering brutality
could be called fair, and wafted the poor pedes-
trian along most swiftly if not very gracefully
for a few yards. Then the end came, and
twenty yards short of the protecting haven she
was blown down flat on her face and had
ignominiously to crawl, a most sadly dishevelled
wreck, into the harbour. I went as fast as I
could to her assistance and we duly reached
home. Now under such circumstances as these
my heart literally bleeds for our poor dear
women. They have nothing to say about it
that can be of the very smallest comfort. " Oh
dear," or some such rotten expletive is the best
they can do, and I must candidly confess that
such cotton wool as that wouldn't in any crisis
be the very slightest use to even the very selvedge
edge of my soul. I should indeed have very
much liked to have been present, if my stalwart
nephew S — M had ever happened to have been
blown flat on his face like the above. Verily I
trow the words that would have flowed from his
usually chaste lips would have savoured rather of
fire, brimstone and bitterness than any cotton
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Of an Old 'Un

wool. I must acknowledge that I have heen
very near to him on several occasions when he
has taken what I can only describe as the most
infernal and imperial crovvners to the very great
detriment of himself, his rods and his reels, but
then the woe has been too deep, altogether too
deep, for any expletives, and had I dared I should
have exclaimed in the words of Malcolm (not
McNeill), " Give sorrow words : the grief that
does not speak whispers the o'erfraught heart
and bids it break " ; instead of which I have
only been able to staunch the blood flowing
from knees and knuckles, and gather up the
fragments that remained of reel and rod.

I referred lately to Hangman's Hill. This
was part of the shooting in the south of Colon-
say that for the time being was ours. It was a
rocky heather-clad hill rising about 500 feet
above the level of the sea, and round its foot-
hills it was fully five miles in circumference.
Game of all sorts was to be found on it, pheasant
and partridge, for at its base was a certain amount
of arable land, black game, grouse and many
woodcock, snipe and wild fowl. Could aught
from a sportsman's point of view be more en-
trancing ? But it is more from the executioner's
standpoint that I am regarding the hill just now,
and at the same time an executioner with a
hempen cord, rather than a double-barrel breech-

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Sporting Recollections

loader. As you pass along the foot of the
western side of the hill you can see, far above
you, jutting out from the top of a sheer preci-
pice, a flat rock. From a certain point on careful
inspection you will be able to distinguish a hole
in this rock through which the sky is visible.
Through that hole in days long gone by — very long
let us hope — the wild and ferocious inhabitants
of Colonsay and Oransay, and other islands too
for aught I know, used to carry out their death
sentences. I wonder how many centuries have
elapsed since the gallant clan McNeill escorted
a batch of their foes, after a vendetta with some
other clan, up to Hangman's rock and precip-
itated them then one by one into eternity. It
would matter little whether there was a rope
round their necks or not, for there was a drop
of fully 200 feet on to a mass of rugged rocks at
the bottom. Many a time have I stood on
that flat rock-gallows with the rope hole at my
feet, many a time have I sat in the heather on the
braeside above it, and have pondered on the past.
It was not difficult to people the hill with a troop
of rugged highlanders, claymore in hand, or to
picture the band of prisoners, dour and stern
after the manner of their kind, with arms bound
behind them, so soon to be launched from that
beetling crag.

104

CHAPTER V

Shooting in distant lands — Ignorance of the ordinary colonist
as to sport and natural history — Guinea-fowl — Spiny-tailed
ducks — Madagascar goose — Sand-grouse and their habits —
Snipe the " Spookbird " — A day after snipe at Noneye's
Vley — Another Mistress Gilpin of frugal mind — Quail —
A very long and tough journey by a man, and the Lord
was on his side — Another by a woman when He wasn't —
East London in Cape Colony — And a little description of
a sleeping chamber for a lady.

As a very great part of my life has been passed
abroad it is not wonderful that I have had
shooting of most varied descriptions in many
distant lands, but chiefly at the Cape of Good
Hope and its surrounding dependencies. There
I not only had time for much shooting, but
also ample leisure for studying the natural
history of the country and the habits of all the
living things in which I took delight. I think
the first thing that strikes one at the Cape is
the almost universal ignorance of ninety-nine
out of every hundred persons who go forth for
the pursuit of game, as to the habits and even
as to the names of the creatures they are after.
When I first took up my residence in the Cape
Colony I sat at the feet of a certain Gamaliel
who was not nearly so ignorant as most of the

105

Sporting Recollections

inhabitants, and gathered a great deal of in-
formation from him. But as time went on and
my searching after natural history lore went
deeper, as 1 was able to procure books and
study them, I ascertained that three-quarters
of what I had been told was wrong. For
instance, there is a bird called the Namaqua
partridge. It is not a partridge at all, but a
sand-grouse. They have a bird they cull a teal,
and as such it was introduced to me. So far
from being a teal, it was not even a duck, but
a goose {Nettapus madagascariensis)., and a most
lovely little fellow it was, with a Right like
lightning.

I found after a time that on a certain lake
about twenty miles from my home there was
a species of duck that I had seen nowhere else.
No one seemed to know anything about it or
had ever shot one. The lake was surrounded
by a broad belt of high reeds, far higher than
one's head, which grew in water and bottom-
less mud. And there was no boat of any sort
nearer than the Knysna harbour about twenty
miles away. There was nothing for it but to
procure a boat, and this I did at some trouble
and expense, and it was duly brought along on
a bullock wagon. I could do nothing at the
time of its arrival, for I was very busy the
whole day long skinning a white-tailed eagle
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Of an Old 'Un

{Halicetus vocifer) which I happened to have
stalked and shot en route, and my word ! how
that brute did stink. He is somewhere or other
in England now, and I trust in Heaven he is
a little less odoriferous than he was that day,
or the visitors to the Museum where he is now
sitting will be few and far between.

The next day I launched my craft and
approached the unknown ducks. There were
plenty of them, and they let the boat come
within easy shot, but quicker divers I never
saw. They were as smart as any bird I ever
shot at, be it what you will, grebe, scoter, or
any other amphibious brute. But of course I got
some in due course, and they turned out to be
spiny-tailed duck [Erismatura maccod). There
appeared to be not a soul in the district who
had ever seen one of them, or even knew they
existed. Leopold Layard apparently did not
know of this lake, called Groen Vley, or of these
ducks that had their dwelling-place on its waters.

In Bechuanaland there are in places untold
numbers of sand-grouse of three species. In that
desert country they fly miles and miles to drink
at some desert pool, sometimes in thousands. A
man told me that he once let drive into a flock
that had settled on the edge of a pool and
killed two large pailfuls, and that man was a
missionary. So of course it must be true. Yes !

107

Sporting Recollections

Of these three species, two, /. e. Pteroc/es tachypetes
and Pterocles variegatus, come down to drink in
the morning about eight or nine o'clock un-
failingly, and never in the evening. The third
kind, Pterocles bicinctus, drinks in the evening
only, just when night is coming on, and in
the morning never. Now, when I lived in
Bechuanaland I never came across a soul, not
even a missionary, who had ever noticed this
evening-drinking bird, or even knew it apart
from the other morning-drinking fellows, in
spite of its peculiar markings. If any close
observer of the habits of birds is prepared to
differ from me on these points I shall be only
too delighted to touch my hat and take a
lesson. But I am not inclined to gather in-
formation from the casual colonist, or even from
the missionary who shot two pailfuls of sand-
grouse at a shot. I shouldn't wonder, if that
missionary still lives (and he seemed a pretty
hearty upstanding old liar), if his shot hadn't
produced two wagon-loads by this time.

I have at times in various parts of Bechuana-
land shot a great many guinea-fowl. They
are, when one can succeed — a rare occurrence —
in getting them decently cooked, by no means
bad eating. But they are most eminently un-
interesting birds to shoot. They always run
away from you if they can. But one can
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Of an Old 'Un

sometimes run them into thick scrub where
they lie like stones. Then if you have a good
doe he will nose them out, and you will get
many shots of an exceedingly simple nature
such as would be given you by shooting at a
miniature fire balloon with the words, " God
save our good Squire " painted on it, and sent
up into space at a village festival. I have
once and only once found guinea-fowl worth
shooting at. It was at a place called Tsining
in Bechuanaland. I had a mate with me, and
we were pursuing a very large flock of the birds
across some rough veldt. My mate was a
desperate slow mover, and the farther we walked
the farther the guinea-fowl got ahead of us. I
told him that I should run, and that he could
potter on after me at his leisure. I ran for
about a mile and saw nothing ; for we had
already lost sight of the birds when I started.
So I sat me down on a rock and waited for my
companion. It appeared that I had run right
through the birds, for as my mate came strolHng
on with his dog he got right in among them
and kept flushing them two or three at a time,
or singlv, and many came past me well within
shot and at a decent height and pace. I got
about fifteen, and that I honestly believe is the
one and only occasion on which I derived the very
slightest satisfaction from shooting guinea-fowl.

109

Sporting Recollections

I have done a certain amount of shooting in
the Argentine Repubhc, but I had no books and
no preceptor who knew a single thing about the
birds of the country, and as the Gauchos were
unable to lasso birds or even, with the exception
of rheas, to circumvent them with their bolas,
they took no interest in them and could give one
no information whatever. I shot a great many
duck, a few geese, a swan or two (with a rifle),
and heaps of snipe. I fancy the snipe were
Nigrlpennis, but I honestly don't know. Then
there were fast-flying birds that they called part-
ridges, very like a glorified quail, and slow-flying
lumbering brutes that lived chiefly among the old
Indian cornfields that they called pheasants, but
which I suspect were Tinamou. But in writing
of these things I acknowledge my hopeless ignor-
ance, and plead guilty at once to feeling like
old Tennyson's "infant crying in the night, and
with no language but a cry."

Most assuredly the shooting that I loved best
at the Cape of Good Hope was snipe. The
partridge (Francolin) shooting was amusing, and
led one through the most exquisite country in
and among the foothills of the Outeniqua Moun-
tains. Moreover, my beloved Rab was in those
days still with me, and I would contentedly have
gone out shooting monkeys if only I could have
that dear dog at my side. But snipe-shooting
110

Of an Old 'Un

was the best of all. When I first dwelt in
that country I was informed that the ordinary
snipe was exactly the same as the English bird.
Of course, I very soon ascertained that it was
not, but that it was the Blackwing [Gailinago
ceqiiatorialis) . The black-winged snipe at the
Cape is called by the Africanders " the Spook-
bird." I presume this arises from its occasional
habit of "drumming" at night. I must ac-
knowledge that when I have been riding along
in solitude across the rolling wastes of Kafirland
that weird noise as it rose and fell suddenly over
my head possessed very ghost-like qualities.
Had I not known exceedingly well what made
it I honestly think I should have been startled,
and should possibly have felt somewhat inclined
to look up among the stars for some uncanny
apparition. The common British Snipe {Gal-
imago ccslestis), as we all know well, makes the
same drumming noise. Indeed in the Test
Valley, where the snipe have their nests in scores
during the springtime, I have often watched the
birds making their magnificent flights, which
cause the noise, two or three at a time ! But I
have never heard their drumming in England
during the hours of darkness, although I have
walked over the whole of South Hampshire at
every hour of the night and at all seasons of the
year times without number. Then there were

111

Sporting Recollections

the Golden Snipe and the Painted Snipe, two
separate species as I was told. Of course, in
reality they were the same bird, male and female
{Khynchcea capensis). I was not told of the
" Solitary " until I had been at the Cape many
years. I heard of it at East London : went
there, saw, and shot several. Afterwards in the
Transkei we saw them frequently, and my two
sons on one occasion got fourteen " Solitaries "
in the day, besides a whole lot of others, in a
marsh formed by the river Qwaninga, about
twenty miles from our home. It was wonderful
in that country the manner in which the snipe
followed the rain. As long as it was dry there
wasn't a snipe to be seen, but directly there was
rain enough to make the land about the heads
of the rivers marshy, along came the snipe,
sometimes in numbers. Our bags were usually
from thirty to fifty, and these were generally
made within twenty miles of home. I was once
on my way to a distant magistracy to do some
work, and saw, about sixty miles from home,
a most seductive-looking marsh. I made in-
quiries and found out that it was called Noneye's
Vley, and that at times it held many snipe. I
even took the trouble to walk a little way into
it, and to my joy put up several snipe. " All
right ! All right ! " I said to myself, and to the
snipe, " My little dears, I'll come and call on
112

Of an Old 'Un

you again very shortly." Therefore, but very
few days afterwards, one of my boys and I set
ofF and got more than half-way to Noneye's
Vley by sundown, and put up for the night at a
brother " Beak's." We were off again before
dayhght, and reached the Vley in most excellent
time and had a most delightful day. We got
over sixty snipe and a few quail, and flying about
over the marsh most of the day was one of those
exquisite egrets [Ardea garzetta). Oh no ! we
didn't shoot the poor lovely beast, in spite of his
osprey plumes. Why in the name of all foolish-
ness osprey ? We had some lunch that day, or
rather we brought some. I am not likely to
forget that lunch ! The evening before our
hostess, who, like Mistress John Gilpin, had a
very frugal mind, had inquired if we would take
some lunch with us. We replied that we would
be grateful, and that anything would do. Mrs.
Gilpin took us at our word. There was a very
small parcel on the hall table in the morning,
which we chucked into one of our orderly's wallets
and departed. When we opened that paper parcel
in the middle of the day we found it contained
a small chunk r bread. Bravo, Mrs. Gilpin !
Man cannot live jy bread alone, so we chucked it
to dear Hettie, our retriever, who didn't seem to
think very much of it. That wasn't the only
time I had suffered semi-starvation at the hands
1 113

Sporting Recollections

of Mrs. Gilpin. We finished our shoot, and I
am sure that what snipe we left behind us that
day in Noneye's Vley were uncommonly few
and far between. When we sat down to supper
that night we had been fully twenty-four hours
without a mouthful of food, had ridden over
fifty miles, and had enjoyed most thoroughly an
excellent day's shooting. It was, of course,
nothing for me, for I was acclimatized, and was,
moreover, like Thackeray's " gorging Jack and
guzzling Jimmy " in the immortal ballad, old
and tough. But it was an uncommonly hard
day for the boy, who was only seventeen or
eighteen, and who, as far as I could see, was
neither weary nor sorrowful.

The quail-shooting around our house in the
Transkei was superb when it was a good season
and quail were //;. The food that attracted them
was the seed of the Watsonia. At times quail
came in in thousands, and when we had a party,
or my sons, with us we enjoyed quail-shooting
to the utmost, and made very large bags. When
I was alone, however, which was usually the
case, I hardly ever molested them. But on one
occasion they were " in " in such numbers that I
thought that, just for once, I would see what I
could do. I was in my office for a short time in
the morning, and then started. I came in again
some time before lunch with i88. I was deadly
114

Of an Old 'Un

sick of it and shot no more that day. I am per-
fectly certain that I could, had I wished, have
got 500 in the day quite easily.

About the same time I had suddenly to under-
take a journey of nearly 850 miles, i.e. from my
home in the Transkei to a place in the district
of George. It must not be forgotten that this
journey took place more than thirty years ago,
when the means of locomotion at the Cape of
Good Hope were very different from those
existing to-day. At breakfast-time one morn-
ing a telegram was handed to me which ran as
follows : " If possible come at once, attack of
hemorrhage, Walter." I sent back a wire, " Am
on the road, Frank." The telegraph office was
forty miles away, but it was on my way west.

I ought to explain that my eldest brother, the
one with whom I had sojourned years before at
Ardlussa, who was, alas ! at the time of which
I am writing, suffering from consumption, and
had already survived more than one dangerous
attack of hemorrhage, had been ordered to the
Cape, and was staying with our old friends the
Walter Dumbletons, who had in the first
instance welcomed me and mine to the Colony.

Within ten minutes of receiving the message,
having slipped on a riding kit, I was in the sad-
dle and away. I rode, with frequent change of
horses, something over fifty miles to a roadside

'2 115

sporting Recollections

hostel, where I was able to hire a Cape cart
with two good horses. With these I made
some five-and-twenty miles more, and found
myself at a place called Draaibosch, nearly
twenty miles from Kei Road railway station.
It was by this time nearly ten at night, was
raining in torrents, and pitch dark. Could they
let me have a horse .? Woe is me, they could
not. What few horses they had were all away
out on the veldt, and for all they knew might
be miles off. In that inky blackness it was of
course utterly impossible to find them. There
was nothing for it but " Shanks his mare." I
was in tiptop training and had less than twenty
miles to go, and six hours in which to do it, to
catch a train which I knew ran at four o'clock
the next morning. Sounds quite easy, doesn't it .?
But had you known that road and that country,
and not forgotten the intense darkness of the
night, you would have thought otherwise. I
dreaded most exceedingly losing the track, and
I well knew that once lost it was any odds
against finding it again. I don't think I ever
felt the want of a star or two to guide me as
badly as I did that night. I lost the track once,
and only once, I am thankful to say. But
indeed the few minutes that elapsed before I
found out where I was seemed hours. I thought
I knew where I was, but could not feel sure
116

Of an Old 'Un

But I remembered a certain ditch, the boundary
of a farm that I knew, that if I had my bearings
correctly should be within two or three hundred
yards of me. If I could not find it I must sit
down and wait till daylight. That would mean
missing the train, and the mail cart to Graham's
Town, and the train again to Algoa Bay, and
the weekly Cape mail steamer, and lose me
best part of a week. It was awful. With these
thoughts in my brain, and in the pitiless deluge
of rain, I moved slowly forward. On and yet
on until hope almost died. I thought of my
poor brother with the shadow of death hovering
so near. Should I ever reach his bedside in
time to press his hand once more .? On and
still on in the darkness. O, Heaven be praised !
A stumble and a real good bump, and I found
myself sprawling at the bottom of the ditch.
Surely never was mortal man dying of thirst so
thankful to stoop down to a cooling stream as I
was to take that toss into that most merciful
ditch. After that all was well, for I soon got
my bearings and the track was easily regained.
In due course I saw the lights of the station,
and caught my train with a few minutes in
hand. An hour or so later I was seated in the
mail cart in King William's Town, and started
on my eighty-six (I think) mile drive to
Graham's Town. There I caught the night

117

sporting Recollections

mail train to Algoa Bay, and went straight to
Messrs. Donald Currie's shipping office. Now
the big mail steamers very seldom indeed called
at a rotten little place named Mossel Bay, which,
it being only about fifty miles from Oakhurst,
the Dumbletons' place, was the haven I sought.
Could they possibly give orders for the steamer
to land me there next morning .? Utterly im-
possible ! They were most kind and polite, but
said it was out of the question. I said that if it
was merely a matter of expense I would gladly
pay £^o for the accommodation. " Is it a case
of life or death, Mr. Streatfeild ? " they asked.
It must not be forgotten that we were pretty
well known travellers on both the Donald Currie
and Union lines. " Yes ! on my honour it is ! "
was my reply, and I explained matters. " Then,"
said the manager with a smile, "we won't touch
your fifty pounds, sir, but we'll do it for
nothing." Now wasn't he a real lady .? I then
proceeded to lay a dak, as they call it elsewhere,
by wire, and went on board. When we reached
Mossel Bay next morning I found a Cape cart
waiting for me on the jetty, another half way to
George, where was yet another, and we rattled
off that fifty miles in quicker time, I fancy, than
it was ever done before. I reached Oakhurst in
exactly seventy-nine hours from the time I had
left home, and was not in the very smallest
118

Of an Old 'Un

degree tired, although I had had scarcely a wink
of sleep, for I had, as usual, been deadly sick,
while on the sea, and hadn't had my clothes off
at all. I was anyhow dry again, and that was
something. When I entered the train at Kei
Road station, I was just as wet as if I had spent
the night at the bottom of a pond. Walter
Dumbleton met me at the door, and his first
words were " You haven't come in answer to
my message, have you ? it's impossible." It
took him some time to believe it, for indeed it
was a wonderful concatenation of most ex-
ceptional circumstances that had enabled me
to accomplish in very little over three days
what usually took a sohd week. I found my
brother much better, and he was able to talk
to me in a whisper for a few minutes. The
smile of welcome that his wife gave me, dear
loving woman, was ample repayment for the
journey. I stayed with them for many weeks,
indeed until he was well enough to travel, and
then we took him very, very carefully by gentle
stages down to Mossel Bay and Cape Town,
whence I saw him off to England. And now
for the description of yet another journey, but
not by me this time. This httle episode is
addressed to ladies to show how bravely and
manfully one of their dear sex can overcome
difficulties and put up with many horrible

119

Sporting Recollections

vicissitudes, when, poor things, they are following
their wretched husbands who happen to be
Government Officials in distant and degraded
lands.

When I ascertained that in looking after my
brother I should be absent from home for many
weeks, I made arrangements for my wife to pay
some visits with friends in the regions of Cape
Town, and sent a message to her at once to
leave our distant home in the wilds, make the
best of her way down to the coast at East
London, a place very well-known at Lloyd's for
its dangers to shipping, for its Bar — not a
drinking one, a watery one — which was not
infrequently impassable for weeks together, and
for many other exceedingly disagreeable things,
and take ship for Cape Town. Among these
disagreeable things, on one occasion, a box of
my wife's was broken open during the night in
the lock-up of the landing-stage, and several
hundred pounds' worth of jewellery stolen. I
take the liberty of cribbing from a book, written
at the time of which I am writing, a few words
about that horrible place. East London, which
depicts it thus : " Reader, have you ever visited
East London ? For your own sake, I trust not.
Do you purpose ever doing so ? Let me implore
you to postpone your visit sine die. Let me
assure you it is impossible to be in East London
120

Of an Old 'Un

without a feeling of intense gloom and depression
coming over you, and that you will never recall
the time of your sojourn there without stimulants
at once suggesting themselves to your mind."

To this dirty hole, then, did that poor woman,
my wife, have to make her way, alone and
unaided, nearly a hundred miles to Kei Road
railway station, and from there by train down
to the coast. In the regions of the Transkei
there are no forwarding agencies, and nothing
whatever in the shape of a Carter Paterson or
Pickford. It would be an easy matter to place
a card in your window, /. e. if you were lucky
enough to possess a house to hold a window in
its walls (as a matter of fact we had no house
at the time, and only a row of Kafir huts in
which we dwelt) ; but there that card might
remain unseen until the blast of the trumpet at
the day of judgment shook it to the ground.

A sleigh, drawn by two or more bullocks, was
requisitioned for the transport of my wife's
portmanteaux to Kei Road. A sleigh is merely
the fork of a tree aptly chosen for the purpose,
cut to the right dimensions by deft hands.
Across the fork are nailed a few spleats, and into
holes drilled in the fork are inserted a few up-
rights. Through these are woven withes up to
a height of three feet, and you have your means
of transport complete. With this vehicle it is

121

Sporting Recollections

perfectly marvellous what can be accomplished.
One can convey goods across exceedingly rough
country, up and down rocky kloofs, and through
rivers ; but in crossing rivers your goods are
taken over on men's shoulders, and the sleigh
swashes after the oxen at its own wild will.
On such a conveyance, then, did my wife see her
things depart for a visit of at least two months
into the heart of civilization, I mean Cape
civilization. (All right, Herbert ! We weren't
going to visit you, although we did have the
luck to see a good deal of a very strong and very
charming man and his family, who was your
predecessor in the past, and whose heart your
father broke a little later on.) O, ye dear sweet
damsels, and stately matrons, whom I love and
reverence so greatly, how would you like to see
your beloved belongings, your silks and satins,
your frillies and furbelows, to say nothing of the
fragile fabrics of your hats and other frail (I
mean nothing) appurtenances, chucked into the
above-described vehicle, anon to disappear from
your own gently ministering hands and sorrowful
gaze for many days, to be cared for only by two
or three almost naked black heathens, to whom
the very idea of a Paris bonnet or an Ascot frock
would be on a par with handing a peche Melba
on a golden dish to a duck-billed platypus ?
Such was the beginning of that journey.
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Of an Old 'Un

Next day my wife followed on horseback,
with a couple of orderlies for a seventy mile ride,
a twenty-five mile drive, and then three hours'
train, oven would be a better and more appro-
priate word. Luck was not on the poor
woman's side. The day before her start our
best two horses returned from a long journey of
one hundred and eighty miles, that they had
taken with one of our boys going back to school.
They were both wofully tired, and my wife's
dear beast, a lovely grey mare and fleet as the
wind, had shown us only too plainly that her
lungs had gone wrong and that consumption was
coming on. Of course she could not be ridden.
As a matter of fact she was never ridden again.
She was allowed, dear gentle creature that she
was, to wander about at her own sweet will ;
but she gradually got worse until the end. She
used to come to the windows and put her head
in and talk to us, and implore us with her lovely
eyes to do something to help her. But all we
could do was gently to sponge the trickle of
blood from her nostrils and tell her how we
grieved for her. Then the end came, for we
saw the poor dear was suffering. So one morn-
ing I took a rifle and led her away. I dared not
trust any one else to do it. So with one tired
horse that poor woman started.

It has been my lot, times without number, to

123

sporting Recollections

ride that seventy-mile journey that was before
her, under every imaginable circumstance; indeed
I have — for purposes of preserving my figure
(ladies will sympathize, I know) — often walked
it, but nothing can exceed the misery, the down-
right misery, of riding mile after mile in broiling
heat along that dusty track where, absolutely
and truly, for many miles the only shade was
that thrown by the telegraph poles that carried
the wire from the Cape to Natal. She spent
two nights on the road for poor Bob's sake, for
she said it made her heart bleed to keep him
going even at a foot's pace ; for a woman can't
get off and walk as we men can to ease her poor
" gee." At last she got to the end, to a place
called Komgha, and found a cart really ready
for her, to her intense relief. You others will
sympathize. Then came the three or four
hours' drive ; then three hours' train, and then
East London. Not a soul to welcome the poor
tired creature, not a smile to greet her as she
alighted from the train, not even a friendly

porter to say " By your leave ! " or " D ! "

Well ! the other thing. She says she would
have been only too thankful to be just sworn at,
if only the voice of the swearer had been
friendly.

She had recovered her luggage at the Kei
Road station, for the sleigh and its attendant
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Of an Old 'Un

satellites had been faithful. This deposited, she
sallied forth, tired out, half dead with heat and
fatigue, and not unnaturally with a splitting
headache, to find a bed for the night. And . . .
and . . . and there was a race-meeting on in
East London, Need I say more ? To those
who have seen a colonial race-meeting in a
thirteenth-class Cape Colony town I need say
nothing. They know ! To those who have
not, no words of mine that my kind and not too
particular Publisher would allow to be printed
could possibly convey a vestige of the truth.
Hell itself, broken loose, would be a Methodist
conventicle compared to a race-meeting in those
days at East London. Under such circumstances
forth went my wife to find some place where
she would fain lay her aching head for the
night.

The first hotel that she went to, where we
were well known, and had often stayed, was full
from floor to ceiling. Even the billiard table,
and the floor under it, were engaged knee-deep.
The manager said there was not a single spare
bed to be had in the whole town at any price.
In spite of this, that wretched, tired-out creature
called at all the hotels and a lodging-house or
two, but in vain. Then she returned to Hotel
No. I, sought the manager, and threw herself on
his mercy. After an interview with one of the

125

£• , » A,

sporting Recollections

waiters, and a certain amount of bribery, this
knight of the napkin was induced to give up his
chamber for the night. My wife tells me that
when she entered that chamber and looked
round, she very nearly burst into tears ; and
that, had she not been so deadly tired, she would
have fled. It was an awful scene. The crockery
was all broken and dirty, soiled linen and shiny
black clothes were hanging on surrounding pegs,
and the bed . . . but here we draw the line.
When she was left alone she locked the door,
looked round with a gasp, and, without undress-
ing, shut her eyes and cast her poor worn-out
body on that awful bed, and her aching head on
that loathly pillow. Think of it ! you who
have never known what it was to lie on any-
thing but the snowiest of sheets, and the softest
and sweetest of pillows, perchance even —

"... In the perfumed chambers of the great
Under the canopies of lofty state
And lulled with sounds of sweetest melody."

Times without number have I watched that dear
creature sleeping like a lamb on the lap of
Mother Earth, and at times wet to the skin,
with her face protected from the dripping rain
by a sunshade stuck in the ground beside her ;
but never in her life, as she assures me, had she
felt any annoyance or been in the smallest degree
126

or an Old 'Un

incommoded by her sleeping quarters until she
found herself in that degraded den of the waiter,
and with her head on his disgusting pillow. Oh,
the comfort next day of finding herself in a nice
bright clean and sweet cabin in one of the Cape
liners, and dancing along over the shining waves
towards Agulhas.

127

CHAPTER VI

Cricket — My first match — Poor " Siiivvy," in other words
Edward McNiven — Alfred Lubbock — one Jumbo —
Neville Lubbock and Fred Norman, point and lob bowler
— The village grocer and six bottles of "fizz" — The
cricket company — Old Samuel Gurney the Quaker — The
" Butterflies " at The Mote, and an umpire — A bellyful
of bowling at Rickling Green and H. E. Bull, a Harlequin,
plays for the Quidnuncs and scores over a hundred — The
Authenticsat the King's Arms,Westerham — The Old'Un's
week — A Streatfeild eleven — Dear lovely Pusey — Kent
cricket in olden days.

In looking through a very long, but by no
means dim, vista of the past, w^hat innumerable
scenes connected with cricket come before me.
What endless friendships w^e made, many of
which, alas ! were terminated by the grim king
years ago, while many, owing to our paths tak-
ing us along devious ways through life, and
perchance far apart in the world, died a natural
death. " Horasnon numero nisi serenas," as the
sundial remarked to Phoebus, when the clouds
collected. I have not the smallest intention of
referring to anything connected with cricket
that was unpleasant, nor to any people who were
disagreeable. Cui bono ? The first match in
which I remember playing was in 1857, and it
128

Sporting Recollections

was Westerham against Edenbridge. Poor Ted
McNiven, nicknamed " Snivvy," was our skipper,
and there were many playing on both sides who
were, or became, well known to fame. I think
McNiven was the strongest man I ever had to
deal with. On one occasion, not very long
before his death, when I was a very well devel-
oped boy of about fifteen, I was shooting with
him at Perrysfield, his home near Oxted. I fell
across a ditch, with my gun in my right hand,
and with my feet on one side and my left hand
on the other, and could not move without
getting into the water. I called to " Mac," who
was close by. He came, and, with the words
" You poor little beggar," stooped down, and
with one hand took me by the seat of my breeches
and lifted me up as easily as if I'd been a rabbit,
and put me on my feet again. I feel sure my
old friend Phil Norman will forgive me for
cribbing a few lines about poor old " Snivvy "
from his most excellent book, Annals of the
Wtst Kent Cricket Club, in which book, by
the same token, he most kindly wrote some very
pretty things about this present scribe.

" Edward McNiven, a magnificent hitter, was
this year (1845) Captain of the Eton Eleven.
He was afterwards in the Cambridge Eleven,
and according to Lillywhite in the Cambridge
Eight, but I do not find that he rowed against
^ 123

sporting Recollections

Oxford. In 1851 he played for the Gentlemen
against the Players. Once in a match against
the Artillery at Woolwich he hit three succes-
sive balls, an eight, a six and a four, all to square
leg, Calvert fielding. He was killed by a fall
from his dog-cart while driving near Westerham
in 1858. McNiven took a leading part in the
Town and Gown row immortalized in the
Pu?7ch parody of Macaulay's Lay called 'The
Fight for the Crescent,' a lay of modern Cam-
bridge, where he figures as ' Fitzwiggins ' —

"Fitzwiggins floored fierce Freestone,

Tom Noddy levelled Hobbs,
And cheerful Merrypebbles

Blacked both the eyes of Dobbs ;
And the aggravated Townsmen

Stared all appalled to see
On the flags the unconscious peelers,

In the Pass the dauntless three."

I well remember hearing that when " Mac " was
at Cambridge Nat Langham was very loath ever
to put on the gloves with him ; for, said the wily
Nat : " No ! Mr. McNiven, 'e don't 'it me often,
but if 'e do 'it me, you see I'm mostly in bed
for best part of a week." I can well believe it.
At the same time he was the gentlest and most
absolutely sweet-tempered of men, and was
intensely beloved by every soul, rich and poor
alike, through the whole country-side. As I
pass by his grave in Oxted Churchyard, I still
130

Of an Old 'Un

heave a sigh when I think of that magnificent
man and gentle, kind-hearted being, cut down
in the very flower of his manhood, for he was
only thirty, through a rotten, silly, unnecessary
accident. He had been shooting pigeons on
Godstone Green, and on going away saw fit, as
he stood up ,n his dog-cart, to drive over a bank
and dnch He was shot out over the back and
ell head first on to a stone which cut a hole in
the back of his head in which you could have
laid a small rat. As they picked him up he said
with a laugh : " My old head will stand many
such a crack as this." But it didn't. He lapsed
into unconsciousness as they carried him into
the httle "pub" close by, and never spoke
another coherent word. In the summer of i 8 c8
Hugh Smith Barry-the present Lord Barrv-
more-and I were keepers of Sixpenny the
Lower Boy Club, at Eton. One of the brightes

r KK I' J""' ^^'"'" "^'^ ^^- -Id Ilfred
Lubbock He and I were in the same division,
and usually I fear rather nearer the bottom of i
than the top, and used to be together a great
deal wet-bobbing and dry-bobbing, and formed a
nendship which still lasts, although he hves in
the far West of England, while I dwell in the
l^ast; I left Eton quite young, while he
remained and won honour and great glorv on
the ^tented field, and developed ifto onf of'the

Sporting Recollections

very finest cricketers in England, and I venture
to say the most graceful bat of his time. I
always thought old Alfred was one of the most
charming men I ever knew, and as an athlete
and exceptionally graceful and upstanding of
men I scarcely ever, if indeed ever, saw his equal.
And I think, above all, stood out in bold relief
the fact that he never for one instant put on one
shred of side. But (big "But," please, Mr.
Printer) he was the most disagreeable brute I
ever knew in my life when he was on the opposite
side and I had to bowl at him. I am thankful to
say we were usually on the same. In 1862 the
Eton Ramblers came into being, and poor Steenie
Cleasby and Alfred were good enough to make
me a member at once, and I played for them
intermittently for many years. I knew all the
eight Lubbock brethren well, was at Eton with
five of them, and was great friends with some,
and fag for one. I once played with John
Lubbock, now Lord Avebury, in the year i860.
Like my friend Lord Harris on another occasion
and with a very different man, G. M. Kelson,
that very fine old Kent cricketer, I most vividly
remember the red uppers of John Lubbock's
cricket shoes at the match in question. He was
skipper for West Kent, for which club I played
very frequently a few years later. I have indeed
had the honour of playing on several occasions
132

Of an Old 'Un

with old Herbert Jenner Qenner-Fust) and was
at Eton with his son. In the 'sixties I played a
great deal for the old Sevenoaks Vine in the days
when "Deb" Monson used to manage it so
excellently well, indeed far better in my humble
opinion than it has ever been managed by any one
else. In his day we played just the very best
clubs, Household Brigade, Gunners, Sappers, I Z,
Quidnuncs, Harlequins, etc., and most delightful
games we had. Ah me ! what a phalanx of
names comes to me as I write from the past, and
how few yet remain ! And their grandchildren
now wield the willow where we bore our part,
let us hope non sine gloria, half a century ago.
My kind friends were good enough to let me go
on playing cricket, and even go so far as to give
me a hearty welcome, long after I had, as I fear,
ceased to be any good, and when my years had
well exceeded the half-century. If, however, I
was but little good in the cricket field, I venture
to hope I was not altogether useless in the house
when the fun waxed fast and furious. I have a
vivid remembrance of sundry cricket weeks, and
perfectly gorgeous fun that ensued thereat. I
remember at a certain Kentish mansion one
Jumbo {Peace, Jumbo ! Shake !) saw fit one
night to go to bed early, and not only to go to
bed early, but moreover to lock his door after
him ; for he was tired, poor dear little fellow !

133

sporting Recollections

The locked door was an offence that cried aloud
to heaven. What was to be done ? Now, it so
happened that around that Kentish mansion, some
fifty or sixty feet from the ground, ran a parapet
a foot or so broad under the top windows, the
windows of the bachelors' rooms, among which
was that of the gentle Jumbo. What easier ? I
called unto me one S — M who has, I think,
appeared elsewhere in these pages, and who in
those days, exactly twenty-five years ago, was
precisely twenty-five years wilder than he is now,
and together we stole our way very slowly and
safely along that parapet. We came to a
window and felt sure it was the gentle Jumbo's.
So I wrapped a handkerchief round my fist and
let go through the window. Instead of, as I
expected, encountering nothing but the pure air
of Jumbo's chamber, my fist came very hard
against a board at the back of a dummy window
that we had clean forgotten. No matter ! We
very soon found the right one, jammed a hole
through it, undid the latch, scrambled into the
room, and had the gentle Jumbo cut of bed and
on to the floor before he knew whether he was
awake or otherwise. Then ensued a deadly fray.
It appears to me now that the disbedded one
was somewhat cross, but in this I am quite
prepared to admit that I am probably wrong,
for dear Jumbo is the sweetest-tempered of
134

Of an Old 'Un

mortals, although during what ensued in the far
from silent watches of that eventful night he
proved himself most fiercely aggressive. He
flew at me like a lion — tiger if you like it
better — and with one fell blow laid me flat on
the floor. But woe is me, ere ever I reached
Mother Earth, mother carpet I mean, there
intervened something most wofully hard. It was
the coal-scuttle, and there is on my person — (no
details, please, Publisher) — a counterfeit present-
ment of that coal-scuttle indelibly impressed for
evermore. Dear, gentle Jumbo, I love you still !
Early next morning some very foolish and ill-
advised young men of the party having carefully
examined the parapet asserted that had we not
been " tight " we should not have paid that
nocturnal visit by such an exalted path to
Jumbo's chamber. So, just to show that they
were wrong, and that at the same time there was
no ill-feeling, I danced merrily along the self-
same path in my night-shirt. On yet another
occasion, same establishment late at night, one
Joey came to me with tears in his eyes : " I say,
old man, I'm awfully tired. What's the best way
to secure peace from you ragging devils ?" " Go
to bed, Joey, my child, and leave your door wide
open, and not a soul will cross your threshold."
Yes ! there is still honour among thieves, thieves
of a certain sort I mean, not including some

135

sporting Recollections

newly made peers, card-sharpers, welshers,
haberdashers, and company promoters. I inter-
viewed Joey in the morning, and he assured me
that his slumbers had been unusually peaceful
and that no ill dreams or evildoers had disturbed
his rest.

Since the days of Helen of Troy there has
generally been a woman at the bottom of
every strife. It was so on this the following
particular occasion. We were a party of four in
a carriage on the G.W.R. Joey, two darlings,
and myself. Said one of the darlings, the more
mischievous one : " I should like to see you two
boys try if one can put the other up into the
net." So we tried. It was a pretty gorgeous
rag : but as we were all on our way to a water
party, and were " flannelled fools " for the
occasion and " muddied oafs " later on, please,
what cared we ? Joey was much the bigger
man, and probably stronger than I was, but no
stayer, and not a quarter as hard. There was a
fierce fray, and we were for a few minutes all
over the carriage, but at length poor old Joey
was clean blown and done for and cried " Pax I"
and I easily got him up into the net, where he
was more than content to lie quiet and grunt. I
don't remember that the victor was presented
with any laurel wreath though on that particular
occasion.
136

Of an Old 'Un

A very charming country cricket match that
I can recall that took place about fifty years ago
was Westerham, a very strong club in those
days, against Sevenoaks Vine, which was at that
time managed by Capt. Saunders. We had in
our team some most valuable assistance in the
shape of a few Normans and Lubbocks from the
West Kent Club, while the Vine had several
players whose names on the cricket field are
among the immortals — Rashleighs, Fields, Kel-
son, Rogers, and others. On our side was a
very fatal — fatal that is to the other — combina-
tion formed by Fred Norman bowling lobs and
Neville Lubbock at point picking them off the
bat as a street Arab picks out winkles with a
pin. Lubbock fairly surpassed himself that day.
When the bowler started for his run, Point was
standing decently seven or eight yards away ;
but when the ball reached the batsman I don't
think he was ever more than a few feet av/ay.
This combination of talent had secured several
wickets when Saunders, the skipper of the Vine,
came in with wrath on his brow and winged
words in his mouth. He vowed to Neville that
if he once came within reach of his bat he'd
smash his head in. We saw a grim smile appear
on Point's face. Saunders took guard and Fred
Norman proceeded to bowl a good length lob
with a curl from leg. Saunders played back to

137

Sporting Recollections

it, and like lightning, like an arrow from a bow
— for indeed in those days Neville was more
active than any kangaroo — " Point " dashed in,
and ere the ball touched ground was in his
hand, and was neatly tossed up into the air, well
out of reach of Saunders's wrath, who, as he
walked back to the tent, merely made the

remark, "Well, I'm d d!" I remember

that Martin Norman was playing in that match.
It was the last time I saw him, for he died quite
young.

On that same Westerham ground, which
was in those days on Farley Common, long
before there was any thought of a ground in
Squerryes Park, I was very much astonished at
the end of some match or other, when I suppose
I was about three- or four-and-twenty, by the
well-known village grocer, one Sam Atkinson,
coming up to me and saying: " I've backed you,
Mr. Frank, for six bottles of champagne to throw
farther than anybody else on the ground."

" My good man, / can't throw. I never
threw a measured throw since I was born. I
don't believe I could chuck eighty yards to save
my life." And this I honestly thought was the
truth. I knew I could generally reach home
from long leg, and that was all.

" But you will throw for me, sir — won't
you .? " said Sam.
13S

Of an Old 'Un

" I'll do my level best with the greatest plea-
sure in life, Atkinson," I replied ; " but I tell
you honestly, I don't think you've got a dog's
chance, and that your six bottles of ' fizz ' are
as good as ' gone.' " To cut a long story short
I won with a chuck of 103 yards, which of
course is nothing like a really first-class throw,
but it landed old Sam Atkinson his half-dozen
of " fizz," which, thank God, I did not help to
consume, for I imagine that even my cast-iron
inside would have had something to say about the
quality of Westerham champagne in those days.

I played a great deal of cricket in the 'sixties
for the "Cricket Company" at Upton Park,
Essex, only six miles east of the Royal Exchange.
It was a lovely ground in the park of Ham
House, at one time the home of old Samuel
Gurney, the Quaker, and head of the firm of
Overend & Gurney, which came to such terrible
grief in 1866. Here is a true yarn about old
Sam Gurney, who was my great-uncle, his sister,
Elizabeth Fry, having been my grandmother.
Uncle Gurney usually carried half a handful of
sovereigns in his waistcoat pocket in case he
chanced upon any of his innumerable nephews
or nieces, for he was the most generous of men.
I met him one afternoon in the grounds of Ham
House when I was a small child, and after a little
kindly talk — for the dear old man loved children

139

Sporting Recollections

— yes ! even me — he said, " Well, good-bye,
boy, and here's a sovereign for thee." To which
I replied, " But, Uncle Gurney, you gave me a
sovereign v\'hen I met you this morning." He
looked me very straight in the face, and went
on, " Did I, boy — did I ? I don't remember
meeting thee at all this morning. Never mind,
thee's an honest boy ! Keep 'em both, boy —
keep 'em both." Here's another yarn about him,
for the truth of which I had my mother's word.
On leaving Lombard Street one afternoon to
drive to Ham House, he found to his horror
that his old and trusted coachman was inebri-
ated. So he put the servant inside, mounted
the box himself and drove east down Fenchurch
Street, through the wilds of Whitechapel, Bow,
and Stratford, and through his own lodge gates.
There he pulled up, and having stirred up his
old Jehu, who, no doubt, was much revived by
an hour's repose inside the vast barouche, and
having given him a severe but not unkind repri-
mand, added : " And now, friend, thee may get
back on to thy box, for I'll spare thee the dis-
grace of being driven into thine own stable-yard
by thy master."

The wickets provided by the kindly hosts of
the " Cricket Company " were perfect, and any
one who failed to get runs on that ground could
get them nowhere. I also well remember those
140

Of an Old 'Un

enormous great brown china double-handled
tankards that the solemn old butler from Ham
House used to bring out and hand round to the
thirsty players. Ah ! they were, indeed, cheery
days, and never have I played more wholly
delightful cricket than for the " Cricket Com-
pany," nor served under a more charming cap-
tain than old Ted Buxton. In those days we
had two annual matches — Gentlemen of Norfolk
versus those of Essex — at Ham House and East
Dereham respectively. They were productive
of good cricket and great fun ; and in looking
through the past such old friends as these come
back to me : Charlie Absolom, Jimmie Round,
Tommie de Grey (for not yet was he Lord
Walsingham), Ted and Gurney Buxton, Bob
Gurdon, W. F. Maitland, Fellow^es, Cotterill,
"Cat " Davis, cum multis a/iis. Where are they
all now ? Ah ! One morning we were playing
this match at Ham House, and one of the
crowd was desirous of improving his knowledge
of entomological history, and to what better
authority could he possibly appeal than to
Tommie dc Grey ? We had been staying the
previous night with Ted Buxton at Knighton.
" Oh 1 say, Tommie," halloed the voice of the
inquirer after knowledge from the deep field,
" my tub this morning was chock-full of a lot
of tiny little wriggling devils of things about a

Sporting Recollections

quarter of an inch long ! What on earth
could they have been ? " " In your tub, old
man ? God only knows," came the answer like
a bullet across the ground.

I played a great deal at that time for the dear
old " Butterflies," and most capital cricket it was
under the leadership of that excellent and charm-
ing fellow, " Puffin " Guillemard. When I went
away to Africa in 1875 I saw no more of old
" Puffin," alas ! And shall not do so now until
we meet in " that bourne." I wonder if they
play cricket there, and whether we are allowed
to take with us the cricket of our youth, or only
that of our enfeebled, doddering old age. I
wonder (Note by Publisher. Stop wonder-
ing ! At any rate on that subject. It will do
you no good and you'll get no forwarder.) Yet
one more match did I play for the " Butterflies "
somewhere about 1890, and, O Lord ! what
a leather hunt we had at The Mote, near Maid-
stone. All the first day we were out in the
field. Charlie Leslie was confiding enough to
put me on to bowl. The very first ball was
hit hard by Tommie Atkins, and caught at the
wicket. Unfortunately the umpire was scratch-
ing his head, and his cap fell over his face, and
he gave Mr. Atkins not out. After that Mr.
Atkins, not unnaturally, after the manner of his
kind, proceeded to get something over 250.
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Of an Old 'Un

One doesn't soon forget a little mistake of that
sort. The next morning there was a message
from the umpire to say he couldn't come, that
he was very ill, and had been obliged to take to
his bed. I know there wasn't a " Butterfly " on
the ground that wouldn't have been delighted to
hear that, whether he dreaded the one as little
as the other or not, he had taken to his grave.
I also played a great deal for the " Incogniti,"
both under Gussy Hemming before he became
such an ungodly swell as Governor of Jamaica,
and other beautiful things, and under his brother
before him. I can only, apart from the cricket,
recollect one amusing little episode connected
with the " Incogs." We were playing against
the Gentlemen of Sussex at Brighton, and were
all putting up at the " Old Ship." Rather late,
after a very peaceful rubber — we played whist
in those days — with poor Charlie Alcock, Gussy
Hemming, and Thomas, I sought my couch.
Now, it so happened that one of our team, who
was young and inexperienced, nevertheless a
good boy and a good cricketer, had taken his
champagne at dinner, as Othello took other
things, not wisely but too well. Imagine my
dismay when I looked at my bed to see this
child sound asleep in the middle of it. Wake
him, and send him off to his own room, which,
however, I did not know, seemed the right

143

Sporting Recollections

thing to do without a shadow of doubt. Yes !
but wake him ? I might as well have tried to
wake the dead. Poor Kid, I hadn't the heart
to put him on the floor or dispose of him by
any other drastic method. So I just left him in
peace and sallied forth with a candle in my
hand, and a night-shirt over my arm, in the
hope of discovering an unoccupied bed. I
entered several rooms without adventure, and
found them all occupied. At length, I very
quietly opened the door of one, and my candle
shed its light on the faces of a young man and a
young woman. I have every reason to believe
that their certificate of marriage was somewhere
in the apartment ; anyhow, I most sincerely
hope so, for the " Old Ship " was a most old-
fashioned and law-abiding hostel. As I looked
at the touching scene before me I am afraid I
laughed. The man woke and sprang towards
me, and in less than one-tenth of a second I had
closed the door behind me, blown out my
candle, and fled down the passage, and held
myself flat in the doorway of a bedroom. In
the semi-darkness I heard the man's steps and
saw him go past, and then I, too, very quietly
disappeared in the other direction and sought
the smoking-room, where I very comfortably
passed the remnant of the night, until it was
time to go for a swim,
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Of an Old 'Un

The " Incogs." used in those days to play
a match every year at a well-known place in
Hertfordshire called " The Node." There was
an old fossil of an umpire who knew but little
of cricket, but, because of his age and infirmities,
was allowed great liberty by the skipper of " The
Node " Club. Among other privileges, this
old boy was allowed to smoke while standing
umpire. This was, of course, quite wrong.
On no other occasion in my life during a decent
cricket match have I known an umpire permitted
to smoke. Once, when I was bowling, the
smoke from this old duffer's clay continually
drifted across my face, and was very baulking.
I asked the old cock very civilly to leave off.
Not he ! He had always been allowed to smoke
and was going on a-doing of it. I appealed
to the skipper, and got the same reply with a
little temper chucked in. So I asked old Gussy
Hemming to put some one else on to bowl, and
I never played at " The Node " again.

I played a few matches for the M.C.C., and
have most vivid recollections of many cheery
days (and nights) at Woolwich when playing
against the Gunners. I think the first match I
played against them for the M.C.C. was in the
quite early 'sixties. I remember old Billy Nichol-
son was our skipper, and on the other side were
many whose names in the realms of cricket
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Sporting Recollections

were household words. Taswell, Inge, Milman,
" Daddy " Newbolt, poor " Struther," cum multis
aim. I recollect old McCanlis was playing for
the Gunners that match. A corporal he was in
those days, and in these it always gives me
infinite pleasure to meet him among his children
of the " Nursery " at Tonbridge and talk of old
days. I can recall yet another exceptionally
cheery M.C.C. match, a few years later, against
the Southern Division, when the ground was just
inside the lines at Hilsea. Some of us were
staying at an adjacent mansion, which, by the
bye, has since been burnt to the ground. Our
dear, good host was in the habit of conducting
matutinal family prayers for — I presume — the
sake of example to his establishment. I feel
sure it was with no idea of edifying himself.
One morning there was a scene so amusing that
even now, some forty years afterwards, I laugh
as I think of it. We, /. e. some of us, were
assembled in the hall — and please don't forget
that the night before we had been very late,
with dancing, card-playing, billiards, and other
innocent recreations. Our host was seated at
a table with a very big Bible and other devotional
works in front of him, and was turning the
pages backwards and forwards with rather shaky
fingers, when some twenty male and female
servants sailed in and took their seats. The
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Of an Old 'Un

pages of the good book still fluttered backwards
and forwards and the fingers shook still more
vigorously. At length the Bible was shut with
a bang and the would-be reader exclaimed aloud:
" No ! I'll be d— d if I can ! Go away, all of
you, and lie down somewhere else."

With reference to the M.C.C. the well-known
and oft-quoted words of our old friend Borbonius
are for the thousandth or perhaps ten-thousandth
time appropriate : " Tempora mutantur, nos et
mutamur in illis."

How many years does it take now-a-days to
get elected to the leading club ? Twenty ?
Possibly five-and-twenty. I don't think my
election in 1863 took a week, certainly not a
month. Poor Tommy Hoblyn asked me one
Sunday afternoon at his home at Rickling Green
if I belonged to the M.C.C, and on my replying
in the negative, suggested proposing me. I was
more than willing, and very few days afterwards
heard that I had been elected. Poor Tommy !
He was awfully delicate, and died very soon after-
wards, when he was only thirty-one. I remember
he was a great friend of poor Bob Fitzgerald's.
I only played for him once at Ricking Green,
and it was against the " Quidnuncs." We had
a most frightful leather hunt, and as we were
very short of bowling, I got what might some-
what coarsely be exceedingly correctly described
L 2 147

Sporting Recollections

as a most unconscionable bellyful. C. G. Lyttel-
ton (the present Lord Cobham) and several giants
of somewhat less pronounced cricketing stature
were playing for the " Quids," and, odd as it
may seem, through the intense good-nature of
Tommy Hoblyn, one H. E. Bull, of Oxford
Eleven and Harlequins and Gentlemen & Players
renown, was allowed at the last moment to play
for them, for they were a man short. It was a
mistake ! So indeed we of Rickling Green
ascertained to our cost a little later, when both
he and C. G. Lyttelton proceeded to make well
over a century apiece.

I have played cricket in many very uncivilized
places, and in many quarters of the globe — on
the Pampas in South America, in the wilds
of Kafirland, and in many and various places
scattered all over South Africa. On the frontiers
of Kafirland I licked an eleven of natives out of
our police and militia into such decent shape
that in matches got up with all the surrounding
magistracies we never lost one. They were
most excellent material to work upon, had eyes
like hawks, and from their everlasting habit of
throwing knobkerries, very soon became the
most deadly shots with a cricket ball. Their
use of English at cricket, for they knew not
the meaning of a word, was at times most
amusing. For instance, one Zenzili, whenever
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Of an Old 'Un

he hit a very big smite, invariably called out
" Hardt lines " as he legged it off to try and
run six; and Daimani, when he was bowled,
remarked " Good for you, damn ! " as he retired
to the shade of the adjacent mimosa. It was
good fun and interesting withal. I fear that
since my departure from those distant scenes
in the Transkei, cricket, among the natives
at any rate, must have passed into oblivion. I
cannot in any way whatsoever picture to myself
a half-bred Dutch missionary taking the trouble
to instil into the minds and muscles of his
Kafir brethren a love for the intricacies of the
game of cricket. His only possible chance of
profit would be by selling a bat for a cow, a
ball for a sheep, and possibly a set of stumps
for a nanny-goat and her two kids.

During the summers of '85, '86, '87, before
I returned to South Africa again, I played
cricket almost every day. I frequently met the
Oxford " Authentics," and made friends with
many of those dear and most charming boys.
I can see them still, and still hear their voices
ringing across the cricket field, the bar of the
King's Arms at Westerham, the streets of the
village, and even from the windows of the Town
Hall, of which later. One " Spotty," who, in
the regions of Fleet Street, at any rate, they now
call "The Pieman," "Pebble" Stone, Britten

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Sporting Recollections

Holmes, Guy Ewing, Acland Hood, I greet you
all once more. I shake your hands and think
of you as in those dear days, when you fairly
took possession of a certain hostel, and won
smiles from the fair Hebes who dwelt therein.
Ah me ! and now you are all potent, grave and
reverend signiors, anyhow exceedingly grave ;
churchwardens, sitters on the bench and at
county councils, with eyes severe and beards
of formal cut, and, yea verily, I fear, of some
of you at any rate, the " fair round belly " so
rudely referred to by the bard may not prove
inappropriately quoted. But a sigh escapes me
as I think of that dear, bright, kind-hearted boy
Harry " Tommer," gone from us years ago, but
never forgotten. He was one of the very best
and cheeriest souls I ever knew. I would he
were here still. If he gets his deserts it is
indeed a land of peace, of happiness, and beauty
where he now dwells.

" May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore.
The parting word shall pass my lips no more."

The rest of that poem is not applicable to poor
dear Harry. The mighty Geoffrey Ware, too,
who became a parson and went from us, not
I suppose because he became a parson, but
afterwards. You may not believe it, but I have
had in my life a great many parsons for my
150

Of an Old 'Un

friends, and it has struck me somewhat forcibly
that very often the best of them seem to be
wanted, either for preaching or other purposes,
at headquarters long before we have had enough
of them in our mundane barracks. Poor old
Geoffrey Ware ! If in the realms to which he
has gone his preaching is one quarter as terrify-
ing to evildoers as his bowling was on a fiery
wicket in this world to ordinary mortals, he
must now be dwelling among the saintliest of
the elect.

Although I was the skipper of the opposing
side, the " Authentics " were so hospitable as to
ask me to stay with them at the King's Arms at
Westerham. Yes ! thank you, we had quite a
merry night, though I fancy, and I rather hope,
that it is now forgotten. So does Guy Ewing,
I expect, as he is a shining light in these latter
days in the same neighbourhood — churchwarden,
county councillor, potent, grave and reverend
signior, and all the rest of it ; and well, yes !
hasn't altogether done himself badly in the way
of that " fair round. . . ." Pass along, please,
pass along ! After dinner that night while we
were looking about for something for our idle
hands to do, as usual the devil — handy person
under the circumstances — came along in the
shape of a Punch-and-Judy show. The very
clip ! We very soon had the two proprietors

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Sporting Recollections

inside the hotel and regaled them with beer,
much beer, and anon left them smiling, happy
and contented. We then proceeded to annex
their show, drum, Pan-pipes, and all that was
theirs. With this little lot with beat, much
beat, of drum, and blowing, rather discordant if
my memory serves me, of the Pan-pipes, we
paraded the town. " Spotty " headed the pro-
cession with the big drum, and " Pebble " Stone
tootled on the Pan-pipes, while to me was
relegated the honour of shuffling along inside
the Punch and Judy affair, and phew ! yes ! it
was rather like that. Also I sweated some, for
the thing was no light weight. The inhabitants
seemed to like it and joined in the procession,
and there was, I remember, a flag or two held
aloft on sticks. Now Westerham was in those
days a very quiet, inoffensive, and most wofuUy
dull little dorp, and its inhabitants most excep-
tionally law-abiding citizens. My beloved
'earers, I tell you we stirred 'em up a bit that
night. When we thought we had paraded the
town sufficiently we somehow, /. e. a few of us,
made our way up to the billiard-room in the
Town Hall, and from that exalted position Guy
Ewing addressed the crowd. Where were the
police ? you ask. A silly question, if you'll
pardon me. They were not present. But I am
able to state that they were perfectly satisfied
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Of an Old 'Un

with the existing situation. As far as I can
remember Guy's speech ran somewhat on these
lines, but I'm not very sure of the exact words :
I know it savoured very strongly of Stratford-on-
Avon —

" Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me
your ears : Although, as far as I can judge at the
present most interesting crisis in the affairs of
men and of Westerham, your mouths would be
of more use to you. Poor, poor dumb mouths !
Fill 'em ! fill 'em ! and afterwards perhaps they
won't be so dumb. But put no enemy in your
mouth, certainly not an adder, even though his
painted skin may content your eye more than an
eel, which is a slimy brute and steals away the
brains, and has a very ancient and fish-like smell.
I lie not, my friends, believe me ! I can indeed
at my need tell a lie about anything. But I
cannot lie in a cowslip's bell. But I can suck
anywhere, suck any mortal thing that's good,
but where the bee sucks there suck I not. My
friends, I suppose you'll soon be going home.
Don't do it ! You know what happens to
home-keeping youth. What ? You don't know.
O monstrous doleful thing ! Then, alas ! all
the voyage of your life is bound in shallows and
in miseries. But our time, O ye dwellers in this
fair vale, runs short, the iron tongue of midnight

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Sporting Recollections

hath told, the glow-worm shows the matin to
be near, and I hear the lark, the herald of the
morn, on the misty top of Toys Hill. Seek,
then your homes, in maiden meditation, fancy
free ; and when you get there I sincerely trust
that you'll find the prop that doth sustain your
house intact. Good-night ! our revels now are
ended, and we purpose melting not into thin air
as you might think, but into the Arms of the
King, up the street, where falls not hail or rain
or any snow, but on occasions a little beer,
which goes far to heal us of our grievous wounds,
and where after life's fitful fever we hope to
sleep pretty well, thank you. Farewell ! and if
we do meet again — why, we shall smile.
Rather ! "

In those days we had some cricket in West
Kent which went by the name of the " Old 'un's
Week," and O Lord ! what fun it all was. I
called unto me my relations and friends, saying
unto them : " Rejoice with me, for my week is
at hand. We will make merry and be glad, and
go forth into the wild places of Kent, even with
bat and ball, and a pot of paint that is red, and
disport ourselves with the natives of those
regions, who shall rejoice greatly." Forthwith
there came to me nephews and sons, and great
friends without number, and there was assembled
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Of an Old 'Un

a goodly number of most excellent cricketers,
who made the members of some West Kent
cricket clubs sick nigh unto death in the
hunting of the leather. Of my own family we
were usually seven. But I don't think Words-
worth's description of his seven could in any
way have applied to us. However lightly we
may have drawn our breath, I am convinced
that the expression " a simple child " could in
no earthly manner have been correctly applied
to any one of us. A few of my nearest and
dearest pals, including one Arthur Cornwallis,
Hughie Spottiswoode, a handful of Leveson-
Gowers, a Marchant or two, or perchance one
Billy Rashleigh, and a certain " Bishop " Kemp
or Jack le Fleming, made up the team. Anyhow
it was hot enough. We played Westerham,
Squerryes Park, Brasted Park, Wildernesse and
Sevenoaks Vine, Squerryes being a two-day
fixture. Jollier cricket I never played, and very
good withal. A. M. and E. C. Streatfeild, Hugh
" Spotty," Jack le Fleming, " Billy," and Arthur
" Corny " at their best, were not a bad start in
any team. An old Kent " pro," one William
Draper, amused me when we were playing
against the Vine, by telling me before play com-
menced that he had a ball up his sleeve that
would beat Mr. Edward {E. C. Streatfeild). He
said nothing further to me about that ball that

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sporting Recollections

was concealed in his sleeve. Ned's score that day
was 128 not out, obtained in under an hour.

We all, as a rule, put up part of the time at the
King's Arms, at Westerham, and the remainder
at the Crown at Sevenoaks. A new landlord
who knew not Joseph, or even his brethren, to
say nothing of his cricket team, had come to
Westerham and appeared to be very nervous.
Arthur Cornwallis frightened him horribly, I
remember. I fancy that landlord viewed our
departure with great thankfulness. At the
Crown at Sevenoaks, on the other hand, they
truly loved us, and nothing could exceed the
kindness with which they treated us. When
we came away the manageress assured us that we
had made no noise whatever, and that she wished
we were going to stay six months. I heard, by
the bye, afterwards, that there had been a poor
little parson next the room where slept (.?)
Arthur Corny and one " Whack," otherwise
Cyril Streatfeild. That poor little parson's
views on the subject of noise were wholly dif-
ferent from those of the beaming lady in the bar
parlour.

Much about the same time I had the great
honour of leading ten of my family to victory
on the cricket field. We were by no means a
bad team. We played against Colonel Warde's
Eleven at Squerryes, and afterwards sat down to
156

f pi^^ ^

Of an Old 'Un

dinner at my old home, Chart's Edge, a party of
seventeen, all Streatfeilds. It was verily a most
joyful gathering of our clan. I gravely fear
it would puzzle me now-a-days to get up an
eleven of my family that could escape the most
ignominious defeat from a fifth-class dame's
school. My own generation is dead. If it isn't,
it ought to be for any use it is where eye, hand
and foot should work together for good. Then
the next generation is occupied, the best of
them with inspection of schools, and helping in
the leading of British youth into the paths of
industry, to play in all things with a straight
bat, and never to throw a half-volley to the
wicket-keeper. Others could, I honestly believe,
play as well as ever. But they won't, and talk
rot about old age, rheumatism, and other in-
creasing infirmities. And the young men and
schoolboys don't seem to me to care a bit about
cricket, and I never see our name in print in
any matches or hear of them in any school or
college eleven.

In the north-west corner of Berkshire stands
a charming country home, where in one cricket
season I think I bore my part in five cricket
weeks. One of my sons, at the conclusion of
the last, tendered his thanks to the Giver of all
good things, for he affirmed that had there been
one more my constitution must inevitably have

157

Q.httarni
0/ f

Sporting Recollections

broken down, and he would be left a lone and
sorrowing orphan. Dear delighful Pusey ! Can
I ever forget those cheery days and most blissful
and alluring nights ? Surely the fun, the charm
and the chafF were unending. Dear lovely
chatelaine of those enchanting halls, let me once
more kiss your hand, and tender you my warmest
thanks for all those bewitching hours passed
beneath your sweet kindly roof-tree. In imagin-
ation I can still hear your thrilling voice that
came so softly to us in the hush that followed,
perchance a dance to the strains of the Blue
Danube, or even a game of blind-man's bulF —

" Lady, let me believe I love you purely

As the saints love on high ;
Let me believe in this one love so surely

That it can never die.
Oh, let me lay aside my sins and weeping,

My manhood's doubt and pain ;
And on thy shoulder let me fall a-sleeping

And never wake again."

Yes ! It was soothing indeed, and I was
never tired of listening to the enthralling echoes
that you were always so charmingly ready to
waken for me. Yes ! indeed, dear Pusey was a
place to be remembered. Never shall I look
upon its like again. From roof to cellar always
filled with the most perfectly charming young
people, and the only time that was not alive
with pleasure was when we had perforce to go
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Of an Old 'Un

to bed for just a short time before the encroach-
ing brooms of Abigail and her satelHtes. Among
the young people I do not, of course, include my-
self. I was indeed the one and only Methuselah
of the party, and they most sweetly and kindly
put up with me. Ah me ! what a note of sad-
ness rings through the melody as these memories
of the past come back to me, and tears, idle
tears, come welling up unbidden to the eyes in
thinking of the days that are no more.

I never played any first-class cricket, for the
most obvious of all reasons. I don't fancy it
would have appealed to me. I played several
times for the Gentlemen of Kent, and it struck
me as a solemn business, and not at all according
to my ideas of cheerful cricket. I was once
playing for the Gentlemen of Kent against the
Gentlemen of Sussex at Brighton. It was during
the same week that during the Kent and Sussex
match, 1865 or '6, I should think, some
scoundrel, who I suppose had a little bet on
hand, got at the wicket with a hammer. The
wicket was, however, changed, and the nefarious
machinations of the evil-doer rendered abortive.
After dinner on the first day of our match, when
the clock approached eleven or thereabouts, our
skipper suggested bed. It was no uncertain sug-
gestion either. Bed at eleven did not in those
days appeal to me, and when I stated that on

159

Sporting Recollections

the contrary I was going out with a little pot
of red paint in my hand to see the town of
Brighton, and should be back to breakfast, or at
any rate in time to play next day, the looks that
greeted me were anything but alluring.

I have known most intimately hundreds of
first-class cricketers, and I am perfectly certain
that they do not derive anything like the
pleasure from their cricket that we poor duffers
do from ours. Besides all this, in looking around
me in the past I have noticed that some of the
finest players in England have given up playing
in first-class cricket, and have yet continued to
play other cricket three or four, or even six days
a week. I wonder how many times my own
nephew, E. C. Streatfeild, played for Surrey, in
which county he was most unhappily and mis-
takenly born, poor boy ! Not very many, I
trow ; though of this fact I am certain, that had
he been eligible to play for his own county,
Kent, and in the consulship of Lord Harris^ he
would have done it whenever he could. So
would I most gladly if I had been young enough
and good enough. But that again is another
story.

F. H. Norman in seven years, '58-64, only
played for the county ten times, and he was
one of the best cricketers in England. Alfred
Lubbock, another magnificent player, only ap-
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Of an Old 'Un

peared for Kent on four occasions. Edgar, his
brother, only once, and that was against M.C.C.
Now why was this ? I know well ! At one
time I am perfectly certain there were eleven
amateurs in the county of Kent who very seldom
played for the county at all, who could simply
have knocked the existing eleven into a cocked
hat. In due course came along Lord Harris,
and all went well, and following him other
brave and influential knights of the willow, who
have made Kent cricket a very different affair
from what it used to be when I first knew it.

A somewhat peculiar thing happened one day
on Southborough Common in 1866. I was
playing for Gentlemen of Kent against (I think)
an eleven of Tunbridge Wells and district.
Harry Fryer was umpire, and my mate at the
other end sent me back, and I was — as I thought
— run out by two or three yards, and went away
without asking. When I got near the tent,
G, M. Kelson ran out and met me, and said,
" Cut away back and get in your ground, he
knocked the bails off before he got the ball." I
went back and stood in my ground, and on being
asked what I'd come back for, replied that I had
not been given out. Fryer was appealed to and
said that I had not been run out, but that I was
out now for leaving my ground. This decision,
in solemn conclave afterwards, was held to be
M 161

sporting Recollections

rotten. We were all staying at an hotel in the
Pantiles. I think it was called the Sussex County
Hotel. G. M. Kelson, Edward Hardinge and I
had a rubber of whist with a dummy after dinner,
and I remember I never had such a run of good
cards in my life, and that I scooped up many
shekels. My opponents tried to get some of
them back over billiards after breakfast in the
morning, but that only made matters worse —
for them. Then I got hold of a newspaper, and
the first thing that caught my eye in enormous
letters was " Failure of Overend & Gurney."
Now it happened that two years before, when
I had married and settled down — yes ! I said
" settled down " — my cousin Sam Gurney, son
of the old Quaker, had let me have at an ex-
ceedingly moderate rent a very pretty little
furnished house on the banks of the river
Wandle, with about a mile of fishing, and a very
nice little shoot. " Twixt thee and me," he said,
" is no need of any lease or agreement." Now
I was done, done brown. For in due course all
the Gurney property was sold, and we had to
turn out and seek other quarters. It was indeed
a sell. That was our first turn-out from home.
My good Lord ! but we have had a good many
and very varied ones in many outlandish places
of the earth since those days.

162

CHAPTER VII

Back to South Africa again — Bechuanaland — Evil times, and
no residence of any sort — Corn wallis Harris's picture of the
high-road to Kuruman — Red tape, plenty of it— A medical
examination, and an old fossil says I am not sound. Lor !
— A little game of golf — A candid opinion of a good many
Government officials whose only occupation at that time
consisted in licking the boots of that great and good
man, Cecil Rhodes — A description of a frontier officer as
he should not be — Keeping up the dignity of Government
out of the taxpayers' pocket — Government servants in
Downing Street and abroad !— Methods of justice and
decency in Bechuanaland- — A murder case of a very brutal
description, murderer let off by the all-pervading red tape —
Bechuanaland Border Police a disgrace to civilization,
officers worse than the troopers — Injustice to good men in
the past, Byng, Battle Frere, Chinese Gordon, Butler,
Archer Shee, James Outram, Hammersley and dozens of
others — A little geology to finish up with — The Kuruman
caves — A terrified land surveyor — The story of the puff-
adder, by the kind permission of Mr. Theodore A. Cook, the
editor of The Field.

Towards the end of the summer of the Jubilee
year, a summer assuredly to be marked by all
loyal, true-hearted Englishmen in red letters,
I took my departure again- to South Africa. I
had been appointed by the Colonial Office as
Civil Commissioner and Resident Magistrate of
an ungodly hole in the wilds of Bechuanaland
called Kuruman. I was well aware that this
appointment meant complete exile — exile from
M 2 163

sporting Recollections

home, from friends, from all the decencies of
life and from all congenial companionship. But
I fondly imagined that as I was about to serve
the Imperial Government I should assuredly be
treated with some sort of consideration, and
that at any rate some slight degree of thought
might possibly be bestowed towards rendering
the lot of the wretched expatriated official as
little unendurable as, under the circumstances,
was possible. I was indeed bitterly, hopelessly
wrong. I was chucked down into this God-
forsaken, and at the same time missionary-ridden
(the terms are by no means incongruous) hole
of a place like a sea-damaged bale of goods, and
there left to rot ; to live or die, to be well or ill,
to smile or weep as the gods might decree, and,
as I could most plainly observe, there was not a
single official in the country, or any other for
that matter, who cared one solitary iota about
the matter. But, as I think I have said before,
I agree to the uttermost with the words on the
old sundial, " Horas non numero nisi serenas."
I will therefore, as far as possible, try to thrust
on one side records of the deep and dirty waters
through which I had to struggle during my
sojourn in Bechuanaland, and only put before
my readers matters which may perchance interest,
and here and there I hope may possibly amuse them.
I have recorded elsewhere how, about ten
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Of an Old 'Un

years before the time of which I am now writ-
ing, I was sent as a pioneer Resident Magistrate
to the wilds of Kafirland to take up my abode,
together with my wife and a son, at a place
on the hillside where there was no dwelling of
any sort — no ! not so much as one stone upon
another. Now once more I was dispatched
into the wilderness, the avaiit courrier of official
civilization, the first Government officer to take
up his abode in the midst of the various tribes
that inhabited the desert country around Kuru-
man. True ! there were indeed at the place
when I got there several most excellent stone
buildings, erected at very great expense by the
headquarters of the particular missionary society
that held sway at Kuruman. These most capital
habitations, the home of the two dissenting par-
sons that were so comfortably housed therein,
left nothing to be desired, except, perhaps, from
other folk's point of view, a change of inmate.
Many and many a time have I cast a longing
eye towards those comfortable homes when I
possessed not even a room in which to lay my
head, and had only a tumble-down, leaking, flea-
infested old shed for my daily — and still worse,
nightly — abode. The missionaries indeed, when
I arrived at my destination, were so fortunate as
to possess yet another comfortable home that was
empty and uninhabited. It was suggested that

165

sporting Recollections

this house should be let, for a consideration, to
be left to their clerical wishes, to the homeless
Civil Commissioner. Not one bit of it ! They
would not hear of it for a moment ! Nice, kind,
obliging,cup-of-cold-water-in-the-name-of-their-
M aster-giving people. That house remained
empty and unused during the whole of the time
that I dwelt at Kuruman. I heard afterwards
that it was at once let to my successor by the
missionaries on his arrival. He, however, was a
Dutchman and a dissenter. I know of a motto
carved in the stonework over a certain window,
which runs, " Majores vestros et posteros cogi-
tate." Were I the architect to put the finishing
touches to a building destined in the future to be
the abode of one or more ordinary missionaries,
such as, with few exceptions, indeed, I have
found them, deeply, indelibly engraved above
the doorway should appear two very well-known
lines. The first should read, " All hope abandon,
ye who enter here " ; the second, a little shorter
but much to the point, " Nothing for nothing,
and damned little for sixpence."

Among the numerous Kafir tribes that I have
sojourned with, I have been favoured with many
and varied nicknames. One of these was " Vulin-
dhlela," which means " Clear the road." I had
been at Kuruman but a very short time indeed
when I thought that nickname most appropriate.
166

Of an Old 'Un

In Cornwallis Harris' excellent book, 77/? Wild
Sports of Southern Africa, one finds opposite page 32
a picture entitled " The High-road to Kuruman."
This picture is accuracy itself. The high-road
consists of just the wheel-marks of an ox-wagon
which has passed, and which one can still see
dimly in the distance. Following the wagon
up is a man in the foreground, red nightcap on
head, pipe in mouth, kettle in hand, to secure
from which its remnant dregs of coffee he has no
doubt remained behind his comrades. Not far
in front of him lies a sick ox left to die, and very
soon to be surrounded by a ravening mob of vul-
tures waiting for the end, or, to be quite true to
nature, until the end is very near. All around,
as far as the eye can see, is desert, only desert,
with just a stunted bush here and there and an
ant-heap to complete the dreary spectacle. It is
desert indeed. And into such surroundings as
these was my lot cast for the time being. When
I had existed at Kuruman about a year I was one
morning interrogated by a horrible little man
from the mission station wearing a dirty white
tie and a collar that had apparently never visited
a blanchisseiise, and who spoke with an accent
that savoured strongly of the Glasgow railway
goods yard, as to when Mistress {sic) Streatfeild
would be coming out to join me. My answer
was abrupt and to the point : "To this beastly
* 167

sporting Recollections

hole ? I would sooner see Mistress Streatfeild
(as you see fit to call her) in hell than in Kuru-
man. Hell may possibly be bearable. I am
perfectly certain that Kuruman isn't."

O Lord ! how I hate red tape. It has inter-
fered with my enjoyment in life times without
end. Then I am only too well aware of un-
numbered old fogies who sucked in that bugbear.
Government office routine, with their mother's
milk, whose tiny limbs had been bound round
and round with coils of red tape, and whose
minds had been everlastingly enmeshed with
that " monster custom that all sense doth eat."
I thank my God that I am not, and never
have been, one of these most offensive persons.
In the ordinary offices of bankers, merchants,
brokers, printers, publishers and so forth, where
the object is to make money and not to waste it^
red tape is scarcely known and common sense
takes its place.

Before I started on my way to Bechuanaland a
skein of the horrible material enmeshed me. In
the meantime I should greatly like to know
the value of the stationery alone that is unfairly
and downrightly wasted in Government offices,
year after year, without the slighest check being
placed on such a nefarious process. I was
solemnly informed in most official language, on
a most unnecessarily large surface of official
168

Of an Old 'Un

letter-paper, with the insignia of the Colonial
Office emblazoned upon it, that before proceed-
ing to South Africa to assume my duties it would
be necessary for me to present myself to some
old fossil of a doctor chosen by them and get a
certificate that I was sound wind and limb and
fit for service at the Cape of Good Hope. Good
God ! And only two years before I had re-
turned from the said Cape of Good Hope after
ten years' service there, during which I had seen
my way through three Kafir wars and had
endured endless hardships of no ordinary kind
by flood and field, and had never once been on
the sick list or left a day's work unattended to.
Does not that strike you as a somewhat tasty
morsel of red tape ? Isn't there an old proverb
lying about somewhere that tells us that the man
who pays the piper should be the one to call the
tune. In my case it was the red tape of the
Colonial Office that called the tune, but never-
theless the two guineas that went into old
Paracelsus' clutches came out of my waistcoat
pocket. Anon, the old dear proceeded to ex-
amine me. He puffed and fussed and grunted,
he punched me about and sounded me all over
my body. It certainly didn't hurt me and I only
hope it amused him. Then there ensued the
following conversation with old iEsculapius, who
had assumed an air of very great importance —

169

Sporting Recollections

" I am sorry to say, Mr. Streatfeild, I don't
think I am justified in passing you."

" Why not ? " I asked, for I flattered myself I
was just about as fit and strong as any mortal of
my age could possibly be.

" I regret that I find your heart very seriously
affected," was the old cock's reply. At this I
laughed. Yes ! Laughed a good deal. Possibly
I was very ignorant, but I felt certain such a
thing was utterly out of the question.

" You are pleased to be amused, sir," went on
the old dear. " May I venture to ask why ? "

" For this reason, sir," I replied. " I shot
almost every day through last shooting season,
walked to and from the various rendezvous,
distances of not unfrequently twenty miles, on
almost every occasion. I have played a cricket
match very nearly every day through this
summer. I can eat a hearty breakfast, drink a
quart of stout and then walk off twenty miles as
hard as I can lick any morning you like and
never turn a hair. That is why I laugh, and I
think I am justified."

The doctor snuffled and fussed a bit, and I
dare say thought I was an advanced liar. But
he gave me my pass all right, and if he is still
on this side the river perhaps he will be glad to
hear that to-day, twenty-five years after he said
my heart was not trustworthy, it is still going
170

Of an Old 'Un

strong, and that I am looking forward to testing
it to the utmost during the shooting season that
is just started. I have taken the trouble to look
up in one of the back numbers of The Field an
account of something I did eight years after this
worthy doctor's examination, which I think goes
far to prove that medical science, especially as
represented in the British Civil Service, is not
altogether infallible, and possibly not unbound
by the horrible entangling meshes of the afore-
said red tape. Yes ! there was a little bet or
two about it.

" It may interest your readers to have some
account of a tour de force accomplished by Mr.
Frank N. Streatfeild, a member of the Limpsfield
Chart Golf Club over the club links on June
28th. This gentleman undertook to play sixteen
nine-hole rounds (144 holes) in one day, playing
each hole out, and in addition to walk to and
from the links, a distance of four miles each
way. Mr. Streatfeild, moreover, set himself the
task of doing the 144 holes in 720 strokes (an
average of five a hole), and, as will be seen from
the subjoined return, he very nearly accomplished
the feat. Indeed had it not been for the rough
and fiery state of the greens consequent on the
long drought, and the abnormally bad lies that
his ball only too often found on the course, the
specified number of strokes would have been

171

Sporting Recollections

more than amply sufficient. Three balls lost (a
loss of six strokes) and some eight or nine lifts
out of unplayable places added very materially
to the score. Starting from home at 2.30 a.m.,
Mr. Streatfeild began to play about 3.30. The
actual time occupied in play was fourteen and
a half hours, and the player was at home again
soon after nine o'clock p.m. It should be
remembered that Mr. Streatfeild, whose name
has long been known amongst the big game
in South Africa, on English cricket-fields, and
on other fields where the driven partridge skims
all too confidently over the fence, has only quite
lately taken to golf, and has already seen more
than half a century of vigorous life. Such is
the pereimis majoriim virtus. Mr. Streatfeild was
accompanied throughout by his son, Mr. Cyril
Streatfeild. The rounds were as follows : 50,
45, 42, 44, 44, 42, 52, 42, 44, 47, 47, 47, 46,
48, 42, 43—725-

(Signed) " F. W. Parsons,
''Hon. Sec. Limpsjield Chart Golf Club:'

I may add that I was not the least tired, and
ate an unlimited supply of cold roast beef, and
drank a bottle of champagne for supper, and
was off again early next morning and played
a cricket match at Chislehurst, Sevenoaks Vine
against West Kent. So much for the poor
172

Of an Old 'Un

heart that was reported not good enough for
service at the Cape. And Brutus is an honour-
able man — I mean the doctor.

Now those august authorities of the Colonial
Office and elsewhere in Government departments,
held in bondage by the encircUng trammels of the
aforesaid red tape, are not in the smallest degree
inclined to hurry themselves over any of their
ponderous machinations. We all know this to
our cost, and also that any business establishment
conducted on the Hues of any Government office
would promptly rush straight to ruin. It there-
fore did not at all astonish me, as soon as ever I
had accepted the appointment of Civil Commis-
sioner at Kuruman, for I too have dwelt in
Arcadia, to ascertain that there was a most
tremendous hurry for me to take my departure,
although it had taken months for the Solomons
to find out that such an appointment was desir-
able, and that I must be prepared to go out by
the next mail. Oh yes ! I knew the beggars
pretty well, and during the exceedingly brief
interviews, brief as I could make them, that I had
to undergo with one or two of the Colonial Office
clerks, I was astounded — yes ! even I who knew
the animal — was astounded at the supreme ignor-
ance displayed as to the affiiirs of South Africa,
Those among us who have read the Life of
General Butler have learnt a good deal more

173

sporting Recollections

about the wilful, wicked ignorance displayed in
Government offices since the days of which I
write.

So by the next mail I hied me away. On
my arrival at Cape Town, before proceeding
north I had an interview with the Governor's
representative, and much good that did me. It
was the same man who later on, together with
that great and good and straight (Oh, very!)
history maker, Cecil Rhodes, helped to engineer
the Jameson Raid behind the Governor's back.
Dear me ! how I did hate that man. He had
the face of a rattlesnake, but no rattle in his
tail.

There being a great hurry for me to take up
my residence at Kuruman, as I was informed by
the Colonial Office authorities in London, at
Cape Town I was ordered to go some hundred
miles or more out of my way to a place called
Vryburg, to report myself to the Administrator
of the whole of Bechuanaland. I got as far as
Kimberley by train, a weary journey, and from
there to Vryburg, a very much wearier one, by
mail cart. During the whole of that desolate
solitary drive there was only one incident that
brought a smile to my face. The mail cart
arrived about six o'clock one morning at a place
called Taungs, where resided a future brother
magistrate of mine. He came out and greeted
174

Of an Old 'Un

me kindly, took me into his house and offered
me refreshment. Now what do you think that
hospitable soul suggested my drinking at six a.m.
after a very long and dusty desert drive ? Gin
and bitters ! Now I have drunk Cana cocktails
with Gauchos in Argentine pulperias, I have
absorbed a very small quantity of Cape smoke
in wayside hostels, and have sampled " corpse-
revivers " in a Bowery sparring crib, to say
nothing of inferior and sweet champagne in
some improper places in New York, so I feel
sure that I may be considered very catholic in
my tastes. But gin and bitters, utterly filthy at
any time, at six o'clock in the morning, would
surely to any God-fearing traveller be wholly
impossible.

On arrival at Vryburg I tried to report myself
to my chief at about noon, and ascertained that
he was still in bed though not ill. That made
me open my eyes. I was later in the day asked
to dinner, and went. I then was informed that
there was no hurry in the world for me to
take up my appointment at Kuruman, quite the
contrary. I fancy his Honour the Administrator
was really rather puzzled to know what to do
with me. However, he decreed in his great
mind that he and his two secretaries required a
little relaxation, and so they would in about a
week come to Kuruman with me, introduce me

173

SportinfT Recollections

to the missionaries and the surrounding desert,
and there leave me to my fate.

I had a very miserable week at Vryburg, w^ith
nothing to do and very little to read. I made
the acquaintance of my Chief, and came to the
conclusion that never in my life before had I
seen such a glaring instance of a round (very
round indeed) peg in a square hole. Now my
idea of what a frontier head official ought to be
is represented by such men as John Nicholson,
Hodson of Hodson's Horse, Redvers BuUer
cetat. 45, Evelyn Wood at the same time, and
scores of others that I have known and read of ;
strong both mentally and physically, upright,
honourable men, who for no earthly considera-
tion would touch pitch, not even for the wealth
of Kimberley and Johannesburg rolled together ;
hard as nails and ready at a moment's notice to
nip on a horse and ride off sixty or even eighty
miles to suppress a native rising or smother a
frontier foray in its birth. Those are the sort
of men that I delight to honour and to serve
faithfully and to the best of my ability.

Now let me put my new master, the Adminis-
trator of Bechuanaland — a country larger than
the United Kingdom— before you. He was no
doubt a very able lawyer and had done excellent
work as a judge in Cape Colony. A worse
training for a frontier Administrator, where
176

Of an Old 'Un

common sense, accurate observation, and a very
acute knowledge of human nature are of infinitely
greater importance than a knowledge of law, I
cannot conceive. The suaviter in modo was his,
but the. fortiter in re was most lamentably lacking.
He never mounted a horse. Simply he could
not. He was very short, enormously fat, and
carried on his fat face long brown whiskers.
They used to be called Piccadilly weepers. Had
he ever got outside a gee (I cannot imagine such
a thing possible), and happened to fall off, he
would inevitably have emulated the final cata-
strophe of one J. Iscariot.

I once did know of such a horrible ending to
a man's life. I had often seen him. His name
was Kotze, and he was stupendously obese.
One night when travelling in a mail cart through
the Long Kloof north of the Outeniqua Moun-
tains he fell out. I don't quite see how to write
it gracefully, but, not to put too fine a point on
it, he burst, and died very few hours later. My
good Administrator, had he ever dared to get on
a horse and taken a toss, would most assuredly
have done the same. As a matter of fact,
however, I believe he died in the odour of
sanctity in his own bed. As he spent about
eighteen hours out of every twenty-four in that
same, according to my arithmetic and very
meagre knowledge of betting affairs, the market
N 177

sporting Recollections

odds that he would do so are three to one. He
was by far the laziest Government official I ever
came across in all my wanderings. Indeed he
was the only really indolent officer I ever knew.

Frontier officials, be their faults what they
may, are not often lazy. 1 have no remem-
brance, with that one most alarming exception,
of ever having any really great difficulty in
getting a man started. Had the authorities seen
fit to let me find my own way from Vryburg
to Kuruman, after the Administrator had seen,
or thought he had seen, what manner of man I
was, it would have cost the Government, at the
outside, a couple of sovereigns for the hiring of
a horse to carry me the two days' easy ride.
The little holiday (it was nothing else, for not
one of us did a stitch of work the whole time)
of the Chief and his staff cost fully ^400.

About noon one day, for we couldn't ever get
the old buster ready for a start before that hour,
we got under weigh ; the Chief and I in the
most luxurious Cape cart I ever sat in, behind
four very good horses. Our impedimenta, con-
sisting of a big mess marquee, about a dozen
ordinary bell-tents and cooking paraphernalia,
was conveyed in bullock carts. I can tell you
when the Administrator travelled there wasn't
going to be the slightest discomfort or lack of
any description in the commissariat department
178

Of an Old 'Un

— not one bit of it ! He was a greedy old pig,
and gave a great deal of consideration to the
manner in which he filled his most capacious
tummy. The two secretaries rode after us, and,
moreover, we were accompanied by a detach-
ment and captain of the Bechuanaland Border
Police. It was, indeed, a show. I must confess
I didn't understand it at all, and thought it all
absolute rot and utter waste of the inoffensive
taxpayers' money. If the Chief imagined it
would in any way impress me, he was indeed
a long way from the truth. Perchance he
thought he was keeping up the dignity of the
Government. I hate such infernal nonsense !
If a Government thinks it advisable to waste
several hundred pounds in order to induct a
fresh twopenny-halfpenny official into his distant
dog-hole of a place, in my opinion that Govern-
ment is in sore need of advice as to the spending
of the said hundreds, in putting some sort of a
roof over the poor twopenny-halfpenny official's
head, and in ensuring the poor beast some very
slight degree of comfort, and, at any rate, some
meagre shelter from the storm rather than in
wasting them over some paltry and unneeded
display.

On our arrival at Kuruman the Administrator
and his attendant satellites, including myself and
my new clerk, lately trooper in the B.B.P.,

N2 179

Sporting Recollections

a nice blue-eyed boy of two- or thiee-and-
twenty, whose father I had known as representing
the Colonial Commissariat Department in the
Gcaleka-Gaika war of 1877—8, made our camp
in a somewhat sheltered valley a mile or more
away from the mission station. The Adminis-
trator was fox enough for that. There we spent
a few days doing — well, precisely nothing ;
there was nothing to do. Yes ! we did have
a meeting at the mission station and made a few
speeches, all of which, including my own, were
composed of most unadulterated rot. I was
introduced to a few traders and missionaries,
and during the meal that was most hospitably
provided for us by — I believe — the London Mis-
sionary Society, also to some teetotal beverage
that was called " Kuruman Wine." My Lord !
I once in the heat of the moment, years before,
drank some stuff called "Zoedone." Luckily
it was out of doors and far away from civiliza-
tion. It made me most abominably sick. Why
not ? This " Kuruman Wine " stuff would have
killed me stone dead at a mile. I took but one
tiny sip. It was enough ! What on earth the
muck was made of, God alone knows. It tasted
like corked raspberry vinegar bottled off" into an
old boot. Thank you !

When we were still in our camp I had occa-
sion to interview my Chief one morning, and
180

Of an Old 'Un

sought him in his tent. He had a bed on a
real iron bedstead, and the bed had sheets on it.
No ! I am not lying ! Honest Injun ! Honour
bright ! Now, I have roughed it from Dan
even to Beersheba under every imaginable cir-
cumstance, and have lain on the lap of Mother
Earth in all companies, from general officers
with much open pastry on their bosoms to dead
niggers with nothing but the skin God gave
them, but never, in the whole course of my life,
either before or since, have I seen sheets to
sleep in when camping out on the veldt.

The only permanent quarters at Kuruman
that could be found for my poor clerk and
myself were as paying guests with a broken-
down, bankrupt trader who had married a servant
from some mission station. They had a child
about four years old. The woman was ever-
lastingly pouring into my ears the fact that she
was a lady. I was glad she told me ; I might
otherwise have missed it. Our meals were truly
awful. Not only were they almost uneatable
and absolutely beastly, but still worse, the table-
cloth and crockery were never clean. To put the
finishing touches on to the entertainment, the
poor little child, for whom I was truly sorry —
although I not infrequently wished it was dead —
used to sit with us at table, and its ill-clad, awful
mother systematically gave it bones to suck as

181

sporting Recollections

a solace for its tears, for the poor little beast was
always crying. These tear-bedewed bony rem-
nants were shed about the table during the
meal, and didn't in any degree serve to stimulate
our anything but fierce appetites. Although
we were always more than half starved, we could
scarcely touch our food amid such beastly and
disgusting surroundings. I complained to the
master of the establishment, and put the case
before him. He wrung his hands, and even
went so far as to shed a tear or two. He was
indeed a weak vessel. He pleaded guilty to
every indictment ; said he was truly sorry,
acknowledged he was starved himself, but could
do nothing — literally he dared not. So, of
course, I could only laugh, pat him on the back
and tell him to cheer up. Poor beggar ! I was
indeed honestly sorry for him. With that awful
woman he hadn't the very ghost of a chance ;
she could have licked a dozen of him.

One morning the poor man departed in some-
body's bullock wagon for a few days. When
I went to bed that night I thought my couch
felt uncommonly bony. On closer inspection I
ascertained that between me and the steel slats
was just one blanket, and that the mattress had
been abstracted. It would have served that
woman of wrath right had I gone straight at
her and pulled her out of bed by the hind leg
182

Of an Old 'Un

with an ox-reim and abstracted her mattress.
As it was, I only laughed at the consummate
impudence of the woman, and possessed my soul
in patience until the morning. She had, as I
thought, taken the thing to make a bed for her
wretched husband in his wagon. For once
that awful virago of a creature got a bit of her
own back. I owed her a good deal, in many
ways, and I rather fancy I paid in full. Then
I wrote her a cheque for our keep up to date —
and it must not be forgotten that we were paying
for our bed and board considerably more than
ten times their value — shook the dust from our
feet and departed.

Not far away was an unused ruined shed on
the mission-station land, doorless and windowless,
that had been a storehouse in the past, and,
permission obtained, into this shanty we put
our kits and took up our quarters. It was by
no means water-tight, but the roof at one end
kept out rain. The floor was composed of dust
inches deep. Now this description of our new
home doesn't sound tempting. I tell you we
were more delighted to get into it, and away
from the voice of that awful she-cat, the filth
and squalor of her beastly home and her dirty
bone-sucking baby, than I have any words to
describe. Anyhow we were not starved, and a
feeling of cleanliness returned to us, for we both

183

Sporting Recollections

knew well how to rough it with decency ; and
honestly in that poor, leaky, tumble-down old
shanty we were for a season far from unhappy.

Office I had none — not a vestige of one.
Nevertheless, without appliances of any sort,
what little work there was to be done was
expected by the authorities to be accomplished
with regularity and elegance, as though I had
all the staff, stationery, cocked hats, brass
buttons and other impedimenta of Downing
Street lying under my nose.

During my official career at the Cape of Good
Hope, it has on more than one occasion been
hinted to me by fussy and unwashed Africander
magnates that my methods of sustaining the
dignity of the Government left a good deal to be
desired. For instance, if I wished to interview
a headman at a distance I should usually chuck
a gun over my shoulder, and, with a haversack
containing a little food, walk off and do my
work. Whereas my brother official would make
an imposing advance with many orderlies and
other pretentious paraphernalia around him. If
he was an ordinarily constructed mortal he would
go on horseback, but if he happened to be a
very fat and unwieldy person he would travel
in a Cape cart or other conveyance. I was
literally the only South African official that I
ever heard of who was in the habit of accom-
184

Of an Old 'Un

plishing this distant work on foot. No Africander
ever walks a yard if he can by any possibility
avoid it. This process of going about one's
duties fnagnd comitante catervd is considered to
be a support of the dignity of the Government.
As far as the natives themselves are concerned
this is a perfectly fallacious idea. We who
know the wily Kafir intimately are well ac-
quainted with the fact, and, moreover, however
great a man the Kafir might be, even to the
chief of a tribe, he would be infinitely more
impressed by the dignity of the Government
if, in the name of the said Government, you
presented him with a ticky (threepenny-bit)
or a tot of Cape smoke than he would be by
a tail of orderlies a mile long following at one's
heels.

Of course any fool with half an eye could
grasp the fact that in my entry into Kuruman
and my taking up my abode there as Civil
Commissioner with all these tents, equipages,
secretaries, orderlies, and the detatchment of the
B.B. Police, it was the comfort and the dignity
of the fat little Adminstrator that was desired
rather than the dignity of the Government. If
this latter had really and truly been the case,
would it not, after the departure of the Adminis-
trator and all his accompanying glories, would
it not as the weeks passed by, have been more

185

sporting Recollections

likely to have made an impression on the native
mind of the glory and magnificence of that
distant land that the Great White Queen was
ruling over so splendidly, if, when they came to
pay their tribute to him, or to lay their cases
for his jurisdiction before him, they had found
that great Queen's representative housed in a
building somewhat better than a dog-kennel,
while he administered justice in a hovel that
a cave-dwelling baboon would have looked upon
with scorn ? " Them is my sentiments," as the
child remarked to his Maker, when he was by
way of saying his little prayers, and pointed to
the paper pinned at the foot of his crib on
which he scribbled his poor little childish
desires.

I not infrequently in those days pondered on
the most luxurious apartments wherein sat at ease
the lordly officials at Downing Street. Have
not even my own feet, when by the Grace of
God 1 have been allowed to interview these
mighty potentates in their palaces, sunk down
into their deep-piled carpets. Have I not
looked almost with awe on the resplendent ap-
purtenances that surrounded them ? Have I
grudged them their luxuries and all their costly
magnificence .? Not a bit of it ! But while
sitting alone, an exile in my mud hovel, I have
thought it might possibly be well if those in
186

Of an Old 'Un

authority at home could occasionally bring
themselves to give a thought to their servants
who are working for their King and country
far away. Perchance their service may be quite
as faithful and unselfish at £s°° P^^ annum as
is that of the more fortunate ones who draw
_^5ooo. Moreover, it gives pause for thought
to those who serve in distant lands when they
receive reprimands from the exalted ones be-
cause, forsooth, they have honestly ventured to
incur an expenditure of three or four sovereigns
for the good of their country, when they are
well aware that thousands are forthcoming from
the secret service chest to cover over the delin-
quencies of those who sit in high places and
pose before the public as philanthropists and
saints.

After I had been at Kuruman some time a
court house and prison were erected, but no resi-
dence of any sort for the Civil Commissioner.
The building was a disgraceful affair, /. e. as a
building erected by and belonging to the State
for the use of officials, and as a dwelling for the
white-skinned constables. The floors were un-
boarded and consisted of just hardened mud.
Ceilings there were none. Having nowhere else
to go I lived entirely in my office, and slept in
an adjoining chamber where reposed my bed, a
chair, a tub and the office safe. Sometimes this

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Sporting Recollections

contained a good deal of money. I thought that
possibly some ill-advised persons might see fit to
have a game of romps with that safe one night,
and if so I thought I'd like to take a hand in that
game. As may easily be imagined, the summer
heat in that sub-tropical climate in a building
with a corrugated iron roof was stupendous.

So frightfully hot was it one day that a prisoner,
a black man too, died of heat apoplexy. He
died in a large cell in which the prisoners were
sometimes locked up in the day-time. There he
succumbed and was found dead by the gaoler.
There was no ventilation of any sort in that
room. Please remember I had nothing what-
ever to do with the erection of that rotten build-
ing ; and had I ever made any suggestion, should
have got my knuckles well rapped. I therefore
at once had a proper ventilator put in on my own
responsibility. It was about time, wasn't it ?
For daring to incur this enormous expenditure,
which was about three pounds, I received a
somewhat severe reprimand. I have had a good
many in my time. Have you ever heard of a
duck's back in connection with water ?

Now had I done what was desired, that
wretched dead prisoner would have been thrust
underground without any further ado, without
an inquest, without any inquiry whatever. No,
thank you, not if I knew it ! I insisted on a
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Of an Old 'Un

medical examination by a qualified doctor, and
wrote the authorities that I would not have the
poor devil's body buried until such examination
had taken place and a proper certificate of death
handed to me. I got my way. A doctor was
sent, and a certificate that death was the result
of heat in that accursed prison, a very black-hole
of Calcutta, given to me. I was sorry for the
medico, whom I knew well, and a very good
fellow he was. The post-mortem examination,
in which I took my part, was no child's play,
for the man had been dead fully three weeks.
But enough !

My work on the bench at Kuruman was
usually of the dullest and most uninteresting
description. It consisted chiefly of settling
paltry disputes between natives and storekeepers
under the heading " finance," both sides being
more than willing to perjure themselves freely
for the sake of a penny. I had a few differences
of opinion to adjust among the natives, always
in connection with meum and tuum^ and usually
originating in the fracture of the seventh com-
mandment. In this matter I have found the
wily Kafir differing in but a very small degree
from his equally elastic white brother, from a
moral standpoint. I have lived and administered
justice among the Amaxosa tribes for many years.
I have had thousands of them under me in

189

sporting Recollections

war-time, and also have fought against them, and
have studied theanimalvery deeply indeed, and am
very fairly well acquainted with his manners and
customs, which leave a great deal to be desired,
and of Kafir law as administered by Kafir chiefs
from time immemorial. It is, indeed, fearfully
and wonderfully made, and more especially in
connection with that same seventh commandment.
Now my fat Administrator, to whom all my
sentences were sent for confirmation or other-
wise, and by whom all appeals were reviewed,
knew more about ordinary law with his little
finger-nail than did I with my whole body.
But about the natives and their little ways he
appeared to me to know next to nothing. How
should he .? He couldn't ride ; he couldn't
walk ; he wasn't a man at all from the Kafir's
point of view. To win a Kafir's heart, and, so
to speak, to get on the inside track, a white man
must be able to ride or walk alongside of him all
day long, to look after his own horse, to procure
and cook his own food, and sleep on the ground
in the open alongside their camp fire in peace
and comfort. Now our Administrator, so far
from being able to do any of these, could do
none of them. If left alone on the veldt for a
week he would assuredly have died of starvation.
A more unlikely man to win a Kafir's heart
or to be admitted to his confidence I never
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Of an Old 'Un

encountered. To him, then, were submitted my
decisions as to native differences of opinion.
Not much wonder is it that they were usually
reversed.

I will give an instance of a case in connection
with Kafir marriage, and what it frequently
leads to. I have had scores of such cases before
me, chiefly when I was Magistrate over the
Gcalekas. These cases I settled according to no
law whatever with which I am acquainted.
My decisions having been reviewed by the light
of common sense, and not by law, were never
reversed, and in due course these nefarious cases
ceased to be brought into court.

Most people in these enlightened days know
that when a Kafir wishes to take unto him a
certain woman to wife he approaches her
guardian, and they, after an infinite amount of
chaffering, settle on the number of cattle that
shall be paid for her. The cattle are handed
over, the woman goes to her new kraal, and
there is the end of the matter. The woman is,
let us say, a very desirable lady. Very well set
up, ninety-nine out of a hundred are that, and
very pretty, but that from any white man's point
of view is the thing which is not. Then as
time goes on along comes King David, in the
guise of a stalvf art Gcaleka, and casts longing eyes
on Bathsheba. Luckily in this case there is no

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Sporting Recollections

Uriah the Hittite to be shoved into the forefront
of the battle, or the Magistrate would take
exceedingly good care that instead of the easy
sentence meted out to him in history, and being
eventually comforted in the fascinating Bath-
sheba's arms, Master David should most as-
suredly have felt either the encircling noose of
the hangman's rope round his neck or the shock
of half a dozen bullets in his cowardly bosom.
In our case it was quite otherwise, although
quite common until I got my magisterial
clutches on to the malodorous machinations of
the wily nigger.

The sheep's eyes of King David and the
witching glances of Bathsheba had not gone
unnoticed by that lady's lord and master. Seated
in front of her hut one evening, Mr. and Mrs.
Bathsheba made a little plan. The next scene
was before me in the court. Mr. Bathsheba
brought a case against King David for the
recovery of four or five head of cattle, in that
the monarch had broken the seventh command-
ment with Bathsheba, and had, in the words of
the Bible, been taken by the woman's husband
in the very act. It was an exceedingly clear
case of adultery, i.e. according to Kafir law.
Also, after a little cross-examination of Bath-
sheba and her husband separately, it was equally
clear that it was all " a put-up job," and that
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Of an Old 'Un

poor King David had been " had " stock, lock
and barrel. I gave my decision that Bathsheba
was an unblushing harlot ; that her husband was
a dirty, disgraceful, self-constructed cuckold-
and I finished up by ordering him to hand over
to King David the same number of cattle that he
had claimed from the king. It will readily be
believed that in that country at any rate I very
soon put an end to immoral married people
setting traps of such an unblushing and degraded
nature in the hope of knocking unearned
damages out of enterprising and unsuspecting
young sportsmen. My Chief of those days was
only too delighted to help me in trying to dis-
estabhsh such disgusting and dissolute customs
although without any doubt my decisions were
contrary to any law. At the same time they were
not nearly so drastic as are some of the punish-
ments under somewhat parallel circumstances
that I have read of in Leviticus.

The only case of importance and of real
interest that came before me at Kuruman was
one of murder. It was a most cruel and brutal
case, and ended in a manner that to me at
any rate was eminently unsatisfactory. It was
brought to my notice that some years before
a young Bushman of about fifteen had been
murdered by another man, a Mochuana in the
foothills of the Longberg Mountains, about a
o

193

Sporting Recollections

hundred miles away from Kuruman. I as-
certained that there had been a witness to the
murder. My object was to get hold of that
witness and persuade him to tell me all about
it. This was not so easy as it seems, for it is
exceedingly difficult to get men of the same tribe
to give evidence against each other. However,
at length the man was persuaded, and, on my
giving him a definite promise of immunity from
all harm whatever that might ensue to him,
told me the whole story, which was as follows.

He was asleep on the veldt among some
mimosas, and not far away was the Bushman
boy herding his flocks. He was awakened by a
scream, and on looking round saw a man, whom
he knew and named, beating the little Bushman
on the back with a heavy knobkerrie, beating
him apparently to death. At any rate the little
Bushman was killed. The murderer then carried
the body away a short distance and stufFed it down
an ant-bear hole, that most common receptacle
in Kafirland for bodies that have come to an
illicit death, piled some sand on the top and went
back to where he had killed the boy. I asked
my narrator why he had not interfered. " I was
afraid," was the reply. I well believe it. He
went on with his story. Then the man picked
up the dead body of a goat that he had killed
from the ground, and went away with it, and
194

Of an Old 'Un

that was all he knew. I asked if he could take
me to the ant-bear hole into which the body had
been thrust. Indeed he could, quite easily, but
he added that we should now find nothing but
bones. I made arrangements for the future with
my man and let him depart.

In due course I found myself, after a long and
weary desert ride of nearly a hundred miles, at a
police camp under the dark Longberg Mountains
a few miles away. Next morning — it was
Sunday, I remember — I went away quietly on
foot with my guide, who had come by appoint-
ment to meet me. I carried a spade and a sack.
After a few miles' walk my man stopped, pointed
to where at his feet was a deserted ant-bear hole,
and then went and sat in the shade of a mimosa
a few yards away. Then I set to work with my
spade, and in due course had excavated a grave
indeed, in the sand. It was by no means the
first time that I had with my own hands re-
trieved a body in a more or less advanced stage
of decomposition from the ground, but only just
simple, clean, inoffensive bones never before. I
came upon a skull first. It was not fractured,
bearing out what my informant had told me as
to the manner of the murder. By the time I
had finished I had the skeleton very nearly
complete. Then for my ride home again.
After infinite trouble, and getting a great deal
o 2 195

Sporting Recollections

of false information, I ascertained for certain
that the murderer had left the Longberg district
some time before, and was at present working
on the Orange River, some 250 miles away. I
called unto mc Trooper Lockie of the B.B.P.,
the only trustworthy and loyal member of that
most dissolute corps that I ever had under me,
explained matters to him, gave him a warrant
for the apprehension of our man, plenty of
money, and my blessing, and with these he
departed.

About three weeks afterwards along came
Lockie riding up to the court house with his
prisoner on foot, handcuffed at the other end of
a reim. He had done very well in finding him
at first — no easy matter in that country — then
in apprehending him, and at last in bringing
him all that distance, single-handed, without
giving him a chance of escape. The man made
a full confession of his crime to me. He had
killed the little Bushman because the boy had
seen him steal and kill a goat from among the
herd in his charge, and he was afraid of his
evidence. He acknowledged that he had killed
him by repeated blows of a knobkerrie on the
back, for, in case the body should be found, he
did not wish that there should be any external
signs of his deed. He was perfectly callous
about the matter, and appeared to think that
196

Of an Old 'Un

the murder of the boy was exactly on a par
with the killing of the goat. I forwarded all
the papers in due course to headquarters. Not
unnaturally I fully expected and hoped that the
sentence of death would receive the sanction
of the Governor, and that the brute's execution
would follow. Not at all ! The papers were
returned to me, and I was informed that as far
as could be made out the murder had been
committed before Bechuanaland had legally
become British territory, and that as a matter
of fact I was ultra vires in even having had the
cowardly, dastardly ruffian apprehended. I was
therefore to release him forthwith. I did so,
and as he disappeared across the veldt I thought
a great deal.

I had no wish to be hung myself, and I was
well aware that to see that event take place
there were many dirty little swine in Bechuana-
land would have rejoiced greatly. Therefore I
left undone what I should greatly like to have
accomplished when I watched that brutal
murderer walking away a free man. Had I
dared I would have seen to it that although his
hanging could not be managed, he should not
have got many miles away from Kuruman
before he had found a bullet whizzing through
his head. The legal luminary at Cape Town,
who had reviewed the papers that had come

197

sporting Recollections

before him in the case, was so good as to add
to his remarks that he thought it a great pity
that so much trouble had been taken, and such
useless energy thrown away over such an abortive
case. / merely deemed it an infinite pity that
such rotten red tape should set loose upon the
face of the earth a proven criminal, the confessed
and brutal murderer of an innocent child, for
whom hanging would have been a lenient
sentence.

Long before this, before even the foundations
of the very far from imposing edifice, the court
house and prison, had been laid, my poor young
clerk had gone down with fever and had departed
on sick leave. He never came back. He was
never replaced during my sojourn at Kuruman ;
so I was left alone to do the work of the entire
establishment. When I took my departure the
authorities paid me the left-handed compliment
of sending three men to continue the work that
I had accomplished single-handed.

There existed among my almost endless duties
of account keeping, that of postmaster. Every
postage stamp that was sold, every understamped
and unredeemed letter had to go through my
books ; while the monthly accounts of the
establishment so confused, so intricate and un-
necessarily complicated were they, that Machia-
velli himself would have shuddered at them.
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Of an Old 'Un

The account keeping of ordinary folk, merchants,
bankers and others, has always appeared to me
to be rendered as simple as possible. Govern-
ment accounts, in distant lands at any rate,
seem to be run on lines that make the work of
stupendous bulk, of most unnecessary confusion,
and to an enormous extent to resemble the peace
of God which passes all understanding. For
more than a year when I left Kuruman I had
been absolutely alone. Except for the very
occasional visit on business of a missionary or
a trader, or a chance official word or two with
my chief constable or head gaoler — both good
fellows in their way but utterly impossible as
companions — I never looked on a white face.

One morning a most respectable-looking
farmer came into my office and made applica-
tion for a certain farm in the district that had
been advertised for sale, and stated that he was
most anxious that I should do my best with the
authorities to obtain it for him. We had a
long talk, and I treated him very affably, for I
knew he bore a good character, and that he was
a very fairly honest man. When he was taking
his departure he dived his hand into a small bag
he carried, and fishing out a roll of bank-notes,
as I could plainly see, tried to thrust them upon
me. Of course I drew back, and with a smile
told him that we didn't accept bribes in my

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Sporting Recollections

country. My poor farmer's face fell at the
rebuff, and as he replaced his notes he remarked,
" Well, then all I can tell you, sir, is that you
are the only magistrate in this country who
doesn't." I believed him to the uttermost.

There was a law at that time in Bechuanaland
that any one discovering gold or precious stones
on his land should, under dire pains and penal-
ties, report such discovery at once to the nearest
Civil Commissioner. It happened to come to
my knowledge that a certain man had " salted "
his farm with gold dust, and, moreover, that on
the strength of the finding of gold on his land
he was trying to sell the same for much. Good !
First and foremost I ran him in for finding gold
on his farm and not reporting it. He couldn't
get away from that, and for that offence I gave
him " what for." Then in due course I ran
him in again for trying to obtain money under
false pretences, and gave him " what for " again.

A most frightful handicap that I had to contend
against in my work was the arrangement made
for police duty. Of course all over the civilized
world a Resident Magistrate has police under
him who have to give his orders implicit
obedience, or take the consequences. At Kuru-
man it was not so, nothing like it ! The police
arrangements were most horribly cumbersome
and ineffective. I had for my use a detachment
200

Of an Old 'Un

of the Bechuanaland Border Police, sometimes
in charge of a lieutenant and sometimes of a
sergeant or corporal. Had this detachment
been under the Resident Magistrate's imme-
diate command, and moreover, had he possessed
the power of punishment for offences committed
in his own hands, all might have been well.
But he had no such power at all, no power of
punishment whatever. Such a system is rotten
to the core. If the man who is empowered to
give orders to subordinates is deprived of author-
ity to punish for offences, as surely as the sun is
in the sky the machinery will creak and groan
and eventually crash. If my orders were dis-
obeyed, as was occasionally the case ; if there was
slackness in the carrying out of such orders,
as was quite usual ; if there was drunkenness and
debauchery in the police camp, as was invariably
the case, all I could do was to report the matter
to headquarters, and wait many weeks for a
reply. I too have had the honour of command-
ing colonial swashbucklers, and most excellent
fighting men a great many of them have proved.
But to command men such as are usually found
in a frontier corps of irregulars without the
power of instant punishment is rather like storm-
ing a fort with guns loaded with thistledown.
I reported the most disgraceful behaviour of the
detachment at Kuruman, both officers and

201

Sporting Recollections

troopers, over and over again, and the only reply
I elicited, as far as I can remember, was that my
description of the police camp as a " drunken
brothel " was exceeding the limits of expression
that ought to be made use of in an official
communication.

My readers will possibly think I am exagger-
ating. Oh no ! I am not. In proof thereof I
will give a few trifling episodes in the career of
a lieutenant of the Bechuanaland Border Police
who was for a time in charge of the detachment
at Kuruman. I had some of the details from
Major Goold-Adams (now Sir Hamilton Goold-
Adams, G.C.M.G.,etc.,etc.) and Major-General
Sir F. Carrington, K.C.B., etc. etc. They are,
I am glad to say, both still with us, and can stand
forth and contradict me if I state what is not a
fact. While this officer in question was at Kuru-
man he proceeded in the most dastardly fashion to
go out of his way to seduce a trader's daughter.
The ensuing consequences very nearly caused
the poor girl's death. The medico-missionary
who saved her, only just saved her, fancied I
knew nothing about it. He was wrong !

On another occasion this officer and gentleman
had a liaison with a trader's wife. That's all
right ! I am no arbiter elegantiarum and I believe
am no prude. Who am I to trouble my head
about the contraband amours of any dissolute
202

Of an Old 'Un

and degraded frontier swashbuckler ? But by
and by our gallant Lothario, getting more than
usually hard up, sought the deluded Aspasia and
informed her that if she did not forthwith find
him fifty pounds he would make a clean breast
of the whole affair to her husband.

One more, a quite clean, decent and ladylike
affair compared to the last. There was a tem-
perance meeting at Vryburg one evening. To
this meeting went our lieutenant, drunk and
with a bottle of whisky in his pocket. He
made a row, was turned out, and had a fight
with the doorkeeper, who gave him a good
licking. Now the Administrator was cognizant
of this decent affair ; Sir F. Carrington, who
was in command of the B.B.P., but was away
on leave, knew of it, and Major Goold-Adams
knew of it. It was Goold-Adams who first told
me about it. Nothing was done^ and there was
not even a reprimand. I have no comment to
make.

With the exception of the first and second in
command, and one other officer of the B.B.P.,
I never had the luck to meet one of them with
whom I would have trusted a petticoat on a
stick, or a half-crown on the table. The one
exception was a dear good old thing who never
tried to borrow money, never drank too much,
hadn't an // in his composition, never washed,

203

Sporting Recollections

and was as honest as daylight. Naturally they
gave him the sack. In that corps truth and
honesty stood no chance.

In writing to a man with whom I happened
to be acquainted I mentioned the blackguard of
a lieutenant referred to before. I wrote that
without a shadow of doubt he was the most
unmitigated scoundrel I had ever met in South
Africa. As I thought would probably be the
case, this letter was shown to the lieutenant.
By and by I received a letter from a dirty little
skunk of a blackmailing attorney in one of the
frontier towns, with whose most unclean reputa-
tion I was well acquainted, informing me that
he had seen the letter in which I had called the
lieutenant the most unmitigated scoundrel in
South Africa ; that unless I at once inserted an
apology in the leading Cape papers and paid
over to him the sum of ^^500, I should at once
be proceeded against for criminal libel. O Lord !
These two beauties must indeed have thought I
was a mug. I took up my pen, sat down quickly
and wrote that I had the honour to acknowledge
the receipt of the attorney's letter, that it was
quite correct that I had written that I considered
the lieutenant the most unmitigated scoundrel
in South Africa. Then I added, " I have, how-
ever, since writing those words, had occasion to
change my opinion. I now believe I know one
204

Of an Old 'Un

other scoundrel quite as unmitigated as the
lieutenant, and if you lay hold of your best
Sunday looking-glass and take a squint into it
you will see his face in front of you." I never
heard another word about the matter. Even if
the rogues could have raked together or stolen
money enough to start the stone rolling, I knew
well enough that neither of them dared face the
evidence I could have given in the witness-box
as to their characters.

But I think that is about enough of Kuruman
and its affairs. I am sure that it is more than
enough about the people with whom I was
connected while I was wearing out my life in
that dreary and ungodly hole. I hope my readers
will believe, and I venture to think that my
legions of kind friends will know, that when the
affairs of this life go awry, when the clouds are
very heavy and without a sign of any silver
lining, I am not one to lie down in the ash-bin
and howl. Nevertheless Kuruman very nearly
beat me. I am inclined to think now that when
I quitted its arid regions I was not very far from
a mental breakdown. I don't wonder. I had
been alone day and night for more than a year,
and except for on occasional official word or two
with gaoler and constable, never had communi-
cation with any white people at all. The hand
of almost every official in the country was against

205

Sporting Recollections

me — luckily for me it was only on paper — and
they were all, so to speak, thirsting for my blood.
Every single one of the heads of the various
departments was away on leave, sick or otherwise,
some of these departments were represented by
dirty little time-serving colonial cads, and one
or two by young fellows from Government
House, pitchforked upstairs to do Rhodes' dirty
work and help to lay the foundation stones of
some of his dastardly schemes. Verily I say
unto you, they have reaped their reward, I am,
as I sit in my humble abode with empty pockets,
but I hope at the same time with clean hands,
thankful that I was hated, and that I never for
one instant thought of taking part with that
band of lick-spittles who lay grovelling on the
carpet around the rich man's table, waiting with
greedy eyes and open mouths for the crumbs that
should fall from it. I thank God that when day
after day I chuck my gun over my shoulder and
wander away to the covert-side, I am met with
kindly smiles on all sides and a hearty welcome
in endless country homes. I would not change
these things for all the gold in Rhodesia, nor
even to be made one of the noble band of
Knights Bachelors, although the good Queen
Bess did affirm that she had no greater honour
to bestow. I rather think, from what I see
around me, that the meaning of the words honour
206

Of an Old 'Un

and knighthood must have suffered some very
alarming change since the days when such men
as Richard Grenville, Walter Raleigh, and Francis
Drake were proud to bend to receive the
accolade.

Just to show the indecency of the treatment
meted out to me towards the close of my career
at Kuruman, not to mention the word injustice,
I may mention that my clerk's annual salary was
^200. Having done his work for more than a
year, I applied for remuneration out of such
unapplied funds. Result, peremptory refusal.
When at last I found my health failing I applied
for sick leave on half pay. Refused ! Leave
would only be granted without any pay at all.
And this although I had not taken a day's leave
of any sort since entering on my duties ; and also
that at the very moment of my application at
least three heads of departments were away on
long ordinary leave on full pay. It is not always
that the goose and the gander are on all fours.
In due course I got my leave for a certain date,
without any pay at all, and made my plans
to return home forthwith. The day for my
departure arrived. I was a free man on granted
leave. Not a soul had been sent to take over my
duties. Of course any fool could see that it was
a " put-up-job," and I got to know afterwards
who it was that played me that dirty, spiteful

207

sporting Recollections

trick. Just the sort of thing he would do. He
was one of Rhodes's creatures, and a paltry little
cad at that. I didn't wait for my successor, of
course. Why should I ? My leave had been
granted, and why should I wait on and on for a
man who for all I knew or cared might be dead
and down an ant-bear hole by the roadside. I
called unto me an honest storekeeper from near
by who very kindly went through my books and
counted my cash and took it over. Then I took
my departure for Kimberley and home.

Some time before leaving Kuruman I had
appealed to the Secretary for the Colonies, Lord
Knutsford, as to the treatment that had been
meted out to me, for I well knew I might as
well appeal to a dead oyster as to Sir Hercules
Robinson, and much good it did me. I was
never even allowed to see his lordship or to speak
to him. His secretary and clerks took very good
care of that. They foisted off excuse after excuse
upon me, assured me that I could explain matters
to them, which was (so they said) equivalent to
an interview with his lordship. They talked a
lot more rot which I didn't swallow, and so it all
ended. I sent in my resignation, />y request,
receiving a gratuity as compensation, which
made me smile. I was also fined a considerably
less sum than the gratuity for having dared to
quit Kuruman before my successor had seen fit
208

Of an Old 'Un

to turn up, although I had the Government's
permission to go on leave the day I did so, on
an official document as big as a barge, in my
pocket.

But I am howling like a pig in a gate over
paltry grievances. What were my grievances
compared to endless others that come flooding
across my memory in a moment .? What about
that splendid man General Butler, who was
purposely hindered in his work on the Nile by
the authorities at home, and thwarted at every
turn in his untiring endeavours to get his relief
expedition to Khartoum in time to save poor
Gordon's life .? What of poor broken-hearted
Bartle Frere .? I think the finest man I have
ever served under. To come to present times,
what of Edalji ? What has been done to recom-
pense that poor, abominably maltreated man for
his oppression by Government ? and what for
his utterly undeserved imprisonment and ruined
career ? Nothing ! What of Archer Shee ? I
am not sure that that poor boy's case was not the
most disgraceful of all. How the Government
strove tooth and nail to make out they were
right, and that the most palpably innocent
boy was guilty. Lucky indeed was it for him
that he possessed powerful friends, influence and
money, or his innocence would never have been
made clear, or at any rate would never have been
p 209

sporting Recollections

acknowledged by Government, One more case
and I have done, although I can think of
hundreds, every one of which goes far to make
my blood boil. Any one who has studied history
in the early 'fifties will be aware of what that
magnificent man James Outram went through,
what oppression and indignities he suffered at the
hands of the Government. He was at that time
Resident at Baroda.

The system of corruption and bribery called
" Khatpat " was rife, was rampant on all sides.
Outram tried to put it down. He strove most
manfully to exterminate the system amidst
almost overwhelming difficulties and opposition.
Did the Government help him .? Quite the
contrary. They metaphorically hit him over
the head with bludgeons and brickbats ; they
administered reprimand after reprimand ; they
accepted lying stories about him from dishonest
natives, and eventually insisted on his resig-
nation. He returned to England forthwith.
But not long after, it having been ascertained in
England with what energy, acumen and up-
rightness his work at Baroda had been accom-
plished, he was recalled to India and reinstated
in the very position from which he had been
dismissed. Years before this, in advocating the
case of a Lieut. Hammersley who had been
most shamefully and unjustly treated, and sus-
210

Of an Old 'Un

pended from duty, Outram had got himself into
hot water with the powers that were. Never-
theless he was found to be right, and that
Hammersley was innocent of what had been
urged against him. This decision was a little
late, for when it should have been communicated
to the unfortunate fellow he had been dead three
days. He died raving mad, babbhng of the
wicked injustice that had been meted out to
him.

But once more it is enough ! As it was in
the days of Noe, so shall it be until the day of
judgment. Indeed in the days that are now
with us I can't say that I observe any sign of
amehoration in the Government of Great Britain
and Ireland, either in their love of truth, their
sobriety, their morals, or anything that is theirs.
I thank my God morning and night on my poor
stiff old knees that I have not had, and I will
take exceedingly good care that I never do have,
anything to do with any one of them.

For the very last strokes of the shuttle at
Kuruman let us for a page or two study geology.
With that view I will lead you right away into
the bowels of the earth, where it is clean and
sweet, so that at any rate we may quit the
foetid moral atmosphere in which I had been
dwelling so much too long, with the odour of
dear, clean, lovely mother earth in our nostrils.
P 2 211

sporting Recollections

In Bechuanaland, as marked in our atlases,
are many rivers. The Kuruman river is one of
them. These rivers, as far as my experience
goes, have no abiding existence above ground
and no continuous flow. Some of them appear,
flow for a mile or two, and then apparently die
away or come to the surface again a dozen miles
or more further on in the form of small and
possibly stagnant creeks. The Kuruman river
was no exception to the rule ; but it had a con-
tinuous flow at Kuruman or Latakoo, to use its
real Sechuana name, of some four miles, and at
certain times more. When I first knew the
place, about a couple of miles down from the
mission station was a rush-encircled lake of
about forty acres, the home of many duck and
other water-fowl. Among them many rare
ones, including Spoonbills, and once Avocets.
Avocets in an oasis of that desert country, and
about a thousand miles from the sea-coast, struck
me as quite an ornithological freak. I was not
mistaken, for I shot one and skinned it. This
lake as time went on disappeared ; and when I
came away its bed — it was nowhere more than
five feet deep — was just as dry as the sur-
rounding desert. The source of the Kuruman
river, above ground at any rate, was not more
than a quarter of a mile from the court-house,
but where its real origin was in the depths of
212

Of an Old 'Un

the earth God alone knew. It first showed
itself from under a great rock at the foot of a
stony hillside, with an excellent flow of crystal
clear water, of about the same size and strength
as that of the Kentish Darent opposite the Lion at
Farningham. From there it meandered away
down the fertile valley, being led off into side
streams and small channels in places without
number to irrigate the gardens of the sur-
rounding inhabitants, missionaries, a trader or
two, and their black brethren without end.

We have all of us, in King Solomon's Mines
and other works of the same author, read of
most thrilling expeditions into the depths of
the earth of an exceedingly weird nature. I
fancy Sir Rider Haggard may possibly have
derived his ideas from a most wonderful under-
ground passage that existed, and no doubt still
exists, near the source of the Kuruman river. I
have been through that passage many times ; I
have explored it most thoroughly. It was
creepy work. I am by no means sure that in
these present days the conditions of either my
nerves or my waist would permit such ex-
plorations, for some of the passages are extremely
low and narrow, which is bad for the waist ;
also one may remember that a dislodged rock
falling behind one would shut one off from the
outer world in those dark caverns for ever, and

213

Sporting Recollections

that thought is trying to the nerves. Among
the rocks on the hillside was a small opening
through which one could insert oneself and
enter a larger passage ; through this one could
make one's way by wriggling, and here and
there crawling, until one attained to a closet-
like aperture. In this it was necessary to turn
round, a very tight fit, and drop out over a rock
on the other side feet first. Then one came to
quite a good open passage for some considerable
distance, along which one could walk upright
and quite comfortably. But along this passage
flowed the Kuruman river, in places above one's
hips, so soon to quit for the first time the regions
of darkness and emerge into the light of day and
look upon the glorious South African sun.

After leaving that passage the most jumpy and
weird part of the journey had to be encountered,
for one had to go flat down on one's stomach
and crawl some yards through an aperture along
which no fat man — most assuredly not the fat
Administrator of Bechuanaland — could possibly
have forced his way. Also that passage always
had two or three inches of water in it. The
water of course mattered nothing, but its very
presence gave one pause for thought, not uncon-
nected with a possible and sudden rise of water
while one was, serpent-like, worming one's way
along that ungodly burrow. After that all was
214

Of an Old 'Un

easy going, and one at length found oneself in a
large and lofty cavern sixty or seventy yards in
circumference and more than twenty feet high.
There was a beautiful clean, sandy floor, and in
this cavern were many bats, but none of the
great fruit-eating fellows that are not far short
of two feet across their wings. This cavern was
the end of the passage, for I searched diligently
many times and could find no possible exit.
The total length of this subterranean way was, I
was told, a quarter of a mile. Had you asked
me its length after my first expedition through
it, I fancy I should have put it at many miles.
But after frequent journeys along it to and fro,
both with my trusty guide and later alone,
familiarity convinced me that two hundred
yards was the very outside length of the whole
thing.

On one occasion in the water I saw a few
fish. They were evidently of the species called
" Barbers " in those regions. They appeared to
be pure white, and in the light shed by our
candles looked weird and ghost-like as they
swam round our legs. With a view to closer
inspection I afterwards carried a stick with three
fish-hooks lapped on the end, a weapon I have
on occasions found not ineffective in climes other
than Bechuanaland ; but I never saw those white
" Barbers " again.

215

Sporting Recollections

The man who surveyed the site for the erection
of the court house expressed himself as anxious
to explore those caves. I must confess I looked
on his nerves with suspicion, for I had once
been in his company in a small affair of an
upset out of a Cape cart. His behaviour on
that particular occasion was without form
and void. Events showed that my suspicions
as to his nerves for subterranean explorations
proved to be not unjustified. We managed our
outward journey without mishap, although I
had noticed that the poor surveyor was more
than a little jumpy. But on the return, when
he got into the little closet cavern where it was
necessary to turn round, he got stuck in turning,
or thought he had got stuck, and set to and
screamed — yes, shrieked at the very top of his
voice. I was close by and laid hold of his
hand and pacified him a little, poor beggar, for
he was fairly terrified — I suppose at his own
imagination, for there was nothing else to disturb
him. A pretty spectacle in an underground
cave about four feet square and three high — the
Civil Commissioner of Kuruman with a candle
in one hand, and with the other grasping that
of a terrified land surveyor, who was yelling
meanwhile loud enough to make the roof of the
cave fall down and obliterate the whole concern !
I calmed him down at length and got him out
216

Of an Old 'Un

into the open, looking more like a moribund
monkey than an animated morsel of humanity.
I will candidly acknowledge all the same, though
I laugh now, that the first time I emerged into
the open air from those underground horrors I
felt rather as I have done in days of yore when
I have survived my first over in an important
cricket match, when the bowling was very fast
and the wicket not quite all that it should have
been.

On ray journey home there was only one
incident of anv importance, and that one only
of any moment to the writer of these pages.
During the voyage I was struck by a pufF adder
that was on its way to the Zoological Gardens.
I am allowed by my friend Mr. Theodore
Cook, the most courteous editor of T/ie Field,
to insert a verbatim account of that episode as
published in his excellent periodical. It is as
follows —

HOW I WAS BITTEN BY A PUFF ADDER

"The wound it seemed both sore and sad

To every Christian eye,
And while they swore the dog was mad,

Thev swore the man would die.
But soon a wonder came to light

That showed the rogues they lied.
The man recovered of the bite —

The dog it was that died." — Goldsmith.

217

Sporting Recollections

And although it is twenty-two years, almost
to a day, since that venomous reptile [Clotho
arietans) got one of his fangs well across my
right forefinger — trigger finger, worse luck. —
I am still hale and hearty. If I cannot do a
day's work, it is nothing at all to do with the
poor puff adder, for whom I have always had
a feeling of respect, but rather the result of
the frequent and persistent calls of that exceed-
ingly disagreeable and ill-clad old gentleman
who wanders about the world with his scythe
and hourglass reminding people that youth
has passed away and that old age brings in
its train stiffness of limbs, dimness of eyesight,
and plenty of other abominations.

Lest my readers should think that this story
is an imagination, or merely the child of an
inventive brain, I may refer all who are
interested in the question to a letter which
appeared in the British Medical yournal of
June I, 1889 (without any authority from
me, however), written by a doctor who, to a
very small extent, attended me. This letter is
incorrect in many details, but it is there in
print " to witness if I lie." I may preface my
story, then, by saying that I suppose I am the
only man living who has been bitten — " struck "
is really the proper word, for poisonous snakes
do not " bite " — by a puff adder. In South
218

Of an Old 'Un

Africa their stroke is looked upon as certain
death in a very short time.

In the summer of 1887 — ^Jubilee year of
blessed memory — I was offered by the Imperial
(not Cape) Government the appointment of
Civil Commissioner and Resident Magistrate of
Kuruman, in British Bechuanaland. And it vv^as
in that capacity that I was sitting one day
in my office at Kuruman when there entered
to me one of my trusty police who knew my
ways, and that birds, beasts, snakes, butterflies,
and all such " small deer " were a joy unto me.
He told me that he had seen a very large puff
adder about a mile away lying asleep on the
sand among some bushes. Would I like to
get it ? He had left a mate to watch it. Yes,
I thought I would like to get it, for I was
returning to England — by the mercy of a benign
Providence — in a day or two, and thought I
would take it to my friend Tyrrell, who super-
intended all the reptiles at the ^oo. When we
arrived at the place where it had been the
watcher told us it had gone away, but that he
had marked it into a small patch of veldt bushes
close by. I soon saw it, and crawled in after it,
and in a moment had it by the scruff of the neck,
so to speak. To ordinary mortals the handling
of snakes is an abomination. To begin with,
they are afraid of them. In this I do not blame

219

Sporting Recollections

them, for to them all snakes are fearsome brutes,
and also poisonous, whereas in reality only about
one in twenty is so. For instance, has it not
been impressed upon me from my very cradle by
all the old wives, both male and female, here in
my own country in West Kent, that the pretty
little, fragile slow worm, than which a more
absolutely inoffensive, gentle creature does not
exist, and which by the same token is not a
snake at all, is a very deadly reptile ? Then,
again, the casual observer thinks that all snakes
are dirty, slimy brutes. They are no such thing.
I grant our common British grass snake can stink
more than a little, and him I do not like hand-
ling until he knows me and has made friends,
when he will keep his odour to himself. I
think a deadly hatred of all snakes is born in us ;
but I very soon overcame this feeling myself by
at first handling dead snakes, and then living
innocuous ones, and at last those that were
poisonous. I would now just as soon handle a
cobra as a dead stick ; but then it must be
remembered that I give him no earthly chance
to get at me. Well, yes ; I must grant I once
made a mistake with a pufF adder, but that was
only a fluke, and not altogether my fault. No
one ought to handle thanatophidians, or death
snakes, until all feeling of repulsion, even when
a snake has his coils round your arms, has
220

Of an Old 'Un

entirely vanished. If you have the slightest
fear of any snake it is absolutely unsafe to
handle one at all.

But to return to my own pufF adder. I
carried him back to my quarters. I ought,
however, to say " her " instead of " him," for
she was a lady, although she behaved while I
was conveying her ladyship to her new home
in a most unladylike and perfectly outrageous
manner. Puff adders are the most apparently
peaceful and lethargic of snakes, and as a rule
they will not move until they are touched or
trodden upon ; but when they are once really
roused nothing can exceed their passion and the
lightning-like rapidity of their movements. As
an instance of this, I was once rowing down a
river in South Africa, and saw a full-sized puff
adder swimming along — for they are very fond
of water — some twenty yards away. I took up
my gun and shot at him, and while he was
wriggling I sculled up and lifted him on the
blade of the scull. As I watched I saw a sort
of haze round the blade, and plainly heard his
jaws snap, and there he was with a coil round
the scull, and his jaws holding on to the edge of
it like a bull-dog. After I had shaken him off
into the bottom of the boat I found one of his
fangs still sticking in the scull. As an instance
of how lethargic a puff adder can be, I once was

221

Sporting Recollections

tying up the painter of the same boat on the
bank of the same river. My wife, who was
with me, was walking on across the sand. I
happened to look round, and saw her in the
very act and article of stepping over a full-sized
pufF adder that was lying on the hot sand. Her
footprints, as I saw afterwards on the sand, were
within very few inches of the brute. He had
not moved, and did not until I hit him a pat
with a piece of driftwood. It was a very close
call, for stockings are no good against the three-
quarter-inch fangs of a full-grown pufF adder.
Why do they do it ? I mean why do ladies go
about unprotected in a place like that, where
snakes almost swarmed at times ? I cannot tell
you ; but they do, and many men — mostly
Englishmen — go everywhere in their usual
knickerbockers. Personally, I seldom wore
anything else. When one has resided for some
time in a snaky country one wholly ignores the
fact that snakes exist — one literally never gives
them a thought.

There was not the smallest doubt that day at
Kuruman about the lady I was carrying being in
a most uncontrollable passion. She writhed her
coils backwards and forwards round my arm ;
she snapped her jaws like castanets, the poison
meanwhile dripping from her fangs. She was,
indeed, just then a very lively person indeed, and
222

Of an Old 'Un

far removed from being in any way lethargic.
In due course she was safely stowed away
in an empty cartridge box, wrapped round with
an old Eton Rambler blazer, which by the same
token I never remembered to retrieve from the
Zoo. Her ladyship was not so very big after
all — only three feet four — but I must allow she
made up for it in breadth, for she had a waist
that no lady with the slightest respect for her
personal appearance would have submitted to.
I found her ladyship was a bit of a fidget,
especially at night, for she used to ghde round
and round her prison without ceasing, making
a peculiar, rather weird, but by no means un-
pleasant, rusthng noise. We have all read of
" the scream of a maddened beach dragged down
by the waves," but it was nothing like that,
although it did exactly resemble the soothing
swish, swish, swish made by the pebbles on the
glittering beach as the gentle summer wavelets
murmur to and fro in the tide.

A few days afterwards I was in Kimberley for
a night on my way to Cape Town. I had an
exceedingly circumscribed sleeping apartment,
and, having removed the puff adder from my
portmanteau and put her — inside her box by
the way — on the table which was close to my
bed, I could very distinctly hear the frou-frou of
her scales as she glided round and round her box.

223

sporting Recollections

It was an unaccustomed lullaby, but infinitely
better than the serenade of the prowling and
amatory tom-cat, to which suburban citizens are
wont, with muttered curses, to listen aghast. I
was getting drowsy when the hour of midnight
was tolled from an adjacent church. As the last
stroke died away there rose upon the air one of
the sweetest strains to which it was ever my lot
to listen. Four men's voices, exceptionally good
and trained to perfection, were singing in the
near distance the hymn " Peace, perfect peace,"
not so well known then as it has since become.
I could hardly believe my ears, and sat up in bed
to drink in "those witching strains." Meanwhile
her ladyship from her box warned me with her
" shsh, shsh, shsh," that the trail of the serpent
was over it all. " Peace, perfect peace, with
loved ones far away." " Shsh, shsh, shsh." How
little I imagined as I listened to the hymn and
thought of my own loved ones far away, towards
whom I was voyaging, that my weird companion,
which was making its presence known with such
simple, innocent sounds, was to cast me ere I
met those dear ones again into the very jaws of
death. The lovely hymn died away, leaving an
unfilled blank. I felt as though I ought almost
to discern the disappearing wing of Israfil him-
self, so enchanting had been the sounds. I was
never able to ascertain whence this all-too-short
224

Of an Old 'Un

melody had emanated, but I expect it came from
part of the choir of a Roman Catholic chapel.
It would have been no disgrace to that of the
Vatican itself.

I went on to Cape Town by train, and on
arriving sought the shipping office to take my pas-
sage. The vessel, the Roslyn Castle, was full —
full and overflowing, and they assured me that
neither love nor money could procure me a
berth. Most fortunately I knew the skipper
well, and he soon had matters arranged by giving
me a sofa in the cabin of an old gentleman, who
I must say behaved like an angel in most
graciously putting up with my presence with-
out a murmur, for I am quite certain that in his
inmost feelings he must have deemed me, a
perfect stranger, a most unmitigated nuisance.
When towards the end of the voyage that dear,
good man found out that over and above myself
he had travelled all the way across the Atlantic
with a pufF adder in his cabin, the horror
depicted on his countenance can probably be
imagined more easily than described.

The evening that we sailed from Madeira we
were after dinner a large and very cheery party
in the smoking-room. Somehow or other it had
become known to my fellow-passengers that
I had a puff adder with me in my portman-
teau. They begged to be allowed to see it, and
Q 225

Sporting Recollections

implored mc to go and get it. For a long time
I refused ; but at last was over-persuaded and
fetched her ladyship, and in doing this I proved
myself once more to be a fool. I do not think
any one should handle poisonous and angry snakes
except when alone. There should be nothing to
take away the attention from what one is doing,
even for the fraction of a second. For, after all,
handling an infuriated thanatophidian is rather
like playing with death. I took her ladyship
out of her box and held her close behind her
head, while I explained to the audience and
spectators the marvellous internal economy of
the poison apparatus. I opened her mouth and
displayed the fangs rising and falling, showed
where the poison glands lay, and how the
muscles which raised the fangs at the same time
pressed on the glands and forced the poison
through the tiny duct that ran down the fang
and into any substance into which the fang had
been pressed. I did not at all imagine that in
about a couple of minutes the aforesaid sub-
stance was going to be my trigger finger, but
so it was.

My lecture being concluded, I proceeded to
put her ladyship back in her temporary home.
It must not be forgotten that she had been
somewhat shamefully treated. She had been
held for several minutes by the neck with great
226

Of an Old 'Un

firmness, she had had her mouth held open
against her will while its internal mechanism
had been expatiated upon, and had, indeed,
suffered such indignities at my hands that she
was in a most towering passion, and raging to
fix her fangs in some foe. When one is getting
rid of a poisonous snake without wishing to hurt
it one should, in the first instance, be sure that
no coil is wound round an arm or elsewhere,
and that its whole body is free. Then, when
one lets go one's hold, one's hands should be
instantly snatched away and out of reach in
the very act of quitting one's hold. When I
was in the very act of quitting my hold of her
ladyship some one close by spoke to me, asking
a question, and I have no doubt — for I cannot
say I was aware of the fact — I left my hand
within reach of her deadly fangs instead of
snatching it out of her way. I must have
turned away my head to the man who spoke
to me, for I did not see her stroke. But as
I quitted my hold of her, in that very instant,
as it seemed to me, I felt as though a knife
had been sharply drawn across my finger, and,
looking down, I saw the blood flowing freely
and her ladyship out of her box and on the
table, across which she attempted to make her
way. I caught her by the tail, snatched her
back, , and jammed my arm down firmly on
Q 2 227

Sporting Recollections

her head, and soon had her by the neck again,
and with some Httle trouble, and I must admit
risk of another bite, got her safely into her
box once more. I suppose that when I was
struck there were about twenty men in the
room ; twenty seconds afterwards there was not
one. I never saw a room cleared of its contents
in like time ; they simply tumbled over each
other. I yelled with laughter — I could not help
it, although I was in such parlous state myself.
Then, the causa teterrima belli being safely dis-
posed of, the company came slowly back again
and the doctor appeared. Of course, I asked
for ammonia. There was none on the ship.
For a record lot of stale, old, worn-out drugs —
or, indeed, lack of them — commend me to a
ship's drug-store. Well, as there was no
ammonia, I took a great deal of brandy. I
lanced my finger myself right down to the bone,
all along where the snake's fang had made a
long wound, and, moreover, with my own knife.
Then I sucked the wound very vigorously, and
I remember well the doctor trying to make me
expectorate on to the floor of the smoking-room,
which I wholly declined to do. I did not see
why, even if I had got a death-wound, I should
not depart with a clean record, instead of that
of a dirty pig. Also I knew well, which pro-
bably the doctor did not, that a small amount
228

Of an Old 'Un

of snake poison like that taken internally would
not do me any more harm than a square gin cock-
tail, probably not so much. Then I gave my
keys and home address, in case of accidents,
to my good friend Walter Lockhart, who had
promised to look after me and also to carry
out my instructions to the letter while I re-
mained insensible, and soon after that I became
unconscious.

I told Lockhart that probably I should be
reported dead, but that I should not be, and
that if he could get even a few drops of brandy
down my throat when my heart failed it would
jog on again, and that by and by I should come
to. It was not ten minutes from the time the
snake struck me to the time when I lay down
on the smoking-room sofa and became uncon-
scious. That was about ten o'clock. When I
came to again the East was just getting rosy with
the morning sun. Now what took place during
those nine hours I cannot state on oath, although
I was present, but I believe every word of what
was told me by Lockhart, who sat by me the
whole night through and carried out my instruc-
tions to the letter. I have not the slightest
doubt that had it not been for him I should
have been sent, wrapped up in a wad of canvas,
with a bag of old iron for a companion, to the
bottom of the deep blue sea some 350 miles this

229

sporting Recollections

side of Madeira. The doctor came and looked
at me occasionally and said I was very bad.
Well, Lockhart could have told him that. By
and by towards morning he told Lockhart that
I was dead and that he was only fooling about
with a corpse, and added that he should send
a quartermaster to sew me up in my canvas
shroud. To this dear old Lockhart replied that
he did not care a damn what the doctor said,
and that he was going to do exactly as I had
instructed him, and as to the quartermaster, if
he came along and laid a finger on me he would
be a very sick quartermaster indeed before he,
Lockhart, had done with him. By and by I
opened my eyes with understanding, and spoke
to old Lockhart with some degree of sense. I
do not think I ever saw a man look quite so
pleased in my life. I have had a "head" or
two in my time, and have been knocked about
a bit, and have ached and been broken in almost
every bone of my body, but I do not think I ever
felt so ill or suffered such tortures of pain as I
felt when I recovered consciousness that morn-
ing. I ached from the tip of my finger to my
shoulder as though the bone were red-hot iron,
and my arm looked like a hard pillow. They
carried me to Lockhart's bunk, and there I lay
for twenty-four hours. Then with the help of
an arm I could crawl a few yards. By degrees
230

Of an Old 'Un

the pain grew less, and by the time I reached
home I began to take a little interest in life ;
but for months I had to be very gentle with
myself, and even six months afterwards, when I
began shooting, I had to be most careful. I
have never since been so strong as I was before,
and have come to know the meaning of the
word " tired," which I was unacquainted with
before her ladyship took hold of me.

I notice, among many other foolish additions
which have been made to this story elsewhere,
the statement that the pufF adder died a week
after biting me. Did it ? I can testify to the fact
that after the University cricket match of that
year, which came to its conclusion quite early
in the day, about a dozen of us went to the
Zoo and saw it alive. I must allow that her
ladyship looked very far from well. Poor beast !
Who can wonder, for she had eaten nothing of
any description, not even a mouse, since that
evening on the Roslyu Castle when she tried to
take a bite out of me. Now that was on
April 25, and we all know when the 'Varsity
match takes place. I happened to call at the
Zoo the very day her ladyship passed away to her
Valhalla, where I presume the climate would
most excellently agree with her, and where, if
stories of apples and temptations be true, she
would not be the only snake in the menagerie.

231

sporting Recollections

I took her emaciated form to Rowland Ward,
who very cleverly restored her appearance, and
renovated her lost contours, and at the same
time made her look, very fierce and aggressive,
with head erect and fangs displayed. She adorns
at the present moment the Natural History
Museum of Tonbridge School, with a photo-
graph of the man she so very unsuccessfully tried
to exterminate alongside of her.

Immediately on the arrival of the Roslyn
Castle in the London Docks, my fellow-voyager.
Lord Claude Hamilton, most kindly and
promptly went off to old Sir Joseph Fayrer,
who was I suppose at the time the highest
authority on thanatophidians and their poisons,
and the results of absorbing the same, and told
him of the case, and that he would shortly
receive a visit from me. Soon afterwards I
called at his house in Harley Street. He ex-
amined my finger, which was indeed a ghastly
spectacle, and much too offensive-looking for
description here. Suffice it to say that I thought
it useless to try and save it, and had already
implored our own doctor, Arthur Maude, of
Westerham, Kent, who I am glad to say, is still
with us, to cut it off and have done with it.
This he refused to do, and with the utmost care
and cleverness, added to a free use of lancet and
neat carbolic, in little more than six months had
333

Of an Old 'Un

changed it from a useless and painful stick of
putrefied flesh into a member that through the
ensuing shooting season was able to pull a
trigger not more ineffectively than usual, and
the following cricket season to let byes behind
the wicket and secure " ducks' eggs " in front
of them, very much as usual.

Sir Joseph and I had a very long talk, and as
to my own case, he said that except from blood-
poisoning there was now no fear of any fatal
consequences. He asked if he might send down
the street for a doctor, a friend of his, who took
great interest in snake lore. So he came along,
and we had a great palaver, and talked " snake "
right away from the fourteen feet Ophiophagus
elaps, largest of poisonous snakes, down to the
little rustling Echis carinata, that in spite of
its small body carries poison in its glands almost
as deadly as the worst of its ophidian relatives.

"And where at the present moment is this
brute that struck you .? " asked Sir Joseph.

" In a hansom standing at your door, en route
for the Zoo, to which place I am now on my
way," was my reply.

"The devil he is ! Let's get him in here
and have a look at him."

No sooner said than done. I fetched the box
in, took off the covering, and raised the lid, and
was -instantly greeted with a very ominous and

233

Sporting Recollections

prolonged hiss. It must not be forgotten that
I only had one hand to use, for the ofFending
— or shall I say the offended — member was very
well wrapped up and in a sling. Sir Joseph
and his friend looked on, and the former re-
marked : " Well, all I can say is, if you've been
struck by that brute, you've no earthly right to
be alive. I suppose you won't handle any more
snakes now .? " I laughed, and in less time than
it takes to tell it, had her ladyship pinned by the
neck and out of her box and in my hand. I
can tell you, though, she got no chance of get-
ting in a second barrel that round. After some
examination by the two experts I put her back
safely, and we continued our journey, and she
was in due course deposited in her nice, new,
warm, glass-fronted house, in charge of my
friend Tyrrell.

One more scene, and rather an amusing one,
in connection with her ladyship, and I have
done. I one day entered the reptile-house with
a view to making inquiries after her health, and
saw two or three dozen people collected in front
of the puff adder inclosure, to whom Tyrrell was
apparently delivering a lecture. Unobserved by
him I drew near and listened. He was recounting
to the surrounding populace, in connection with
her ladyship, who was lying very peacefully in
front of them, on the other side of the glass,
234

Of an Old 'Un

my truly hairbreadth escape from the imminent
deadly serpent. They certainly were " devour-
ing " Tyrrell's discourse. As he came to the
end thereof he turned and saw me, and pointing
at me added, as if it were the epilogue to his
narrative, the words: "And there's the gentle-
man!"

235

CHAPTER VIII

Fishing, lots of it — My Welsh tutor, his headers which were
not heathrSy quite the reverse ! — The Darent — My first
trout — The wrath of the Squire — Tarred roads and conse-
quently dead trout — Squerryes — General Wolfe — Lulling-
stone — Sunset in Glendarent — Schwalbach — The Neckar
— A day and not a wedding-day at Gretna — Tickling
trout — Snatching carp — Some other dastardly methods of
catching fish — Gaffing General Sir Redvers Buller from
the depths of the Shin — Hopes of finding a drowned home-
ruler, but no luck — Poaching and yet more poaching.

Fishing ! The very thought of it makes one's
pulses throb. From the day when I pulled my
first little troutling out of the not too pellucid
Darent, until another not so very long ago when
I stood over a Norway salmon but little short of
fifty pounds, that lay conquered on the bank at
my feet, have I been quite mad (and I am not
ashamed to write it) on the subject of angling
for trout and salmon. I must confess that in
fish other than these two I have never taken any
really deep interest. I am quite prepared to
admit that there are men, probably much better
sportsmen than I am, who will sit up for hours
making plans, who will haste to rise up early
and so late take rest to compass the capture of
an infernal great ugly brute of a carp that is no
236

sporting Recollections

use to any one when he is caught either alive or
dead, except to gather dust on to the top of his
case in some fisherman's sanctum sanctorum. I
never had a fish of any sort stuff"ed in my life.
" Never caught a big one," says the " carping "
critic. Well, for the present we'll let it go at
that.

When I was little more than a child a benign
providence decreed that my education should be
taken in hand by a very long Welshman. He
was remarkably long, and I remember at the
same time remarkably holy. Neither of these
things in any way whatever appealed to me.
Nor did the fact, when we went together in the
morning to bathe, that in taking a header he
always somehow or other managed to place
himself wrong side upwards in the air, alighting
in the water on a part of his person that was far
removed from his head. But he was a fisher-
man. He owned at least two fly rods and
several books full of flies. Those rods and those
fly books, and his talk of four-pound sewen in
Welsh waters, settled the fact that in whatever
other ways I might spend my life, an alarmingly
great portion of it should be devoted to the
pursuit of Salmonidce. I don't fancy that tutor
was a heaven-born teacher of matters apart from
those piscatorial, nor indeed should I deem him
a success as a fisher of men, which he became

237

Sporting Recollections

later on. But I owe him gratitude in enormous
measure for inculcating into my nature such an
intense love of " the gentle art," and I thank
him from my heart for the unbounded pleasure
that the pursuit of it has afforded me, for the
innumerable friendships to which it has led, and
for the countless wanderings through the very
loveliest regions of many lands that have resulted
in putting strength and vigour into my frame.

Poor little Darent ! sweetest of Kentish
streams ! I sigh as I look upon your attenuated
waters, your lifeless shallows, and think of the
days that are no more, when the mill-head was
alive with rising trout and every pool held its
quota of shining denizens. Now the Water
Companies have robbed you of fully half your
stream, and the fcetid flow from tarred roads has
asphyxiated all your poor fish. If, perchance,
here and there one wretched trout yet remains
in your far from pellucid waters, he must indeed
originally have been a " lusty " fellow and en-
dowed with the constitution of a conger eel to
have succeeded in surviving the condemnable —
to put it politely — insults that have been thrust
upon him. Poor wretch ! Last summer I saw,
to my infinite sorrow, a couple of trout that had
been picked up from a backwater on the Darent
where they had lain gasping and dying. They
should have weighed well over twenty ounces
238

Of an Old 'Un

each. They were not half that weight and were
black, unwholesome, gruesome bodies, and repul-
sive to look upon. When I think of the scores
— nay, hundreds — of the lovely bright beauties
that I have taken from those waters, and then
meditate on what the existing denizens of them
— if indeed there remain even one alive — are
like to-day, it makes my heart sink within
me and my stomach feel sadly rebellious.

From all I hear — and I know the Darent
intimately well from Westerham to Dartford,
and have in the course of my life fished almost
every yard of it — there is not one single trout
left in its waters that a god-fearing angler
would willingly touch with the tip of a finger,
and still less put into his creel. It is, indeed,
most wofully sad ! Arises the question. Can
nothing be done .'' Will the riparian owners
calmly and smilingly submit to this most horrible
state of affairs .''

I heard not long ago that the owner of what
I think used to be the very best stretch of the
Darent was most bitterly and justly indignant at
his fishing being utterly, and as I fear hopelessly,
ruined. To my certain knowledge a few years
ago that fishing was worth ^Tjoo a year. It is
now not worth one farthing. Again I say, can
nothing be done? Is it possible that in a country
like this, that is so excellently well governed

239

sporting Recollections

(N.B. — We are very conservative in West Kent),
and in which the legislation is so perfect (to
which cases of Morison, Archer-Shee, Edalji, Beck,
Hammersley and many others bear ample wit-
ness) that one body of men is able to take certain
steps according to their own wild wills and
infinite wisdom which take some thousands of
pounds per annum out of the pockets of another
body of men, without their having any option or
word to say in the matter ?

I was, not many weeks ago, strolling through a
Kentish village along side of which meanders the
Darent, At the side of the road I saw endless
barrels of tar-muck, which was being ladled out
all over the surface of the road, the whole length
of the village and beyond it on each side for
some couple of miles, and which in due course
with the next heavy rain would of course find
its way into the stream. In the whole of that
particular two miles the road and the stream are
never a quarter of a mile away from each other,
and not infrequently are almost touching, so
much so that the sons of toil are in the habit of
sitting at a certain place, on a rail at the side of
the road, on Sabbath mornings, pipe in mouth,
making free use of the river Darent as a spittoon.
This, however, although it has gone on from
very ancient times, has never done the very
slightest injury to the river as a trout stream.
240

Of an Old 'Un

I caught my first trout in the Darent nearly
sixty years ago. Which of us fails to remember
his first trout, and I may add his first a-great-
many-other things ? but I fancy this subject has
been lightly handled before. There are many
wilder, rockier, more imposing streams than the
little Darent ; many with far deeper waters con-
taining far more lordly fish ; but there are few
indeed, I fancy, that possess in a peaceful " home,
sweet home " fashion a greater charm. Where
the Darent rises and flows tinkling along
through Squerryes Park, forming those pretty
beech-shaded mill-ponds as he goes, could any-
thing be more perfectly lovely than the vistas of
chequered shade when the May sun is shining
through the semi-transparent young beech leaves,
when one sees the droves of tiny rabbits popping
in and out of their holes, and hears the spotted
woodpeckers rattling in the old beeches, and the
weird cry of their green cousin as he flashes
across the opening, and the crow of the old cock
pheasant and the joyful flap of his wings ? All
right, my son, you shall receive attention six
months hence, when your wives have brought
their children to maturity and taught them to fly
so grandly that they shall anon come rocketing
down the wind over these lordly beeches, so high
and so fast that even the very best of us shall re-
joice when we see the head collapse and the wings
R 241

sporting Recollections

cease their flight, as the poor bird comes down
to earth with a thud. By the same token, O ye
who shoot the cock pheasant, does he flap his
wings in the springtime before he crows or
afterwards ?

On the bark of one of those aforesaid grand old
beeches the late Napoleon III cut his initials
years and years ago, at the time when he was a
sojourner at Brasted Place, a couple of miles
down the valley, when he was living in peace and
retirement, far from scenes where later he realized
to the full how there " the gravest citizen seems
to lose his head" in more ways than one perchance,
and " revolts, revolutions, republics " ensue. That
same grand old tree succumbed to the wintry
blast, but the slab of bark on which the Emperor's
knife inscribed the " L. N." still survives among
the antiquarian treasures of Squerryes Court.

We have been hearing, too, a great deal about
Westerham lately in connection with General
Wolfe, who was born there, and there lived for
some years in his youth. Only a short time ago,
did not the greatest soldier of our time, that
" great little, grand little man Bobs bahadur,"
as one Terence Mulvaney delighted to call him,
stand through a snow-storm in Westerham mar-
ket-place, and while uncovering the memorial of
the soldier of the Heights of Abraham fame, say
many very graceful and well-expressed things
242

Of an Old 'Un

about him ? I don't remember that anything
was said about General Wolfe having caught
trout in the Darent in his boyhood, but who can
doubt that such an exceptionally enterprising
soldier was a cunning fisherman also ? As the
Darent flowed through the garden of the very
place where he was born, can we doubt for one
moment that about the year 1732 he might have
been seen with a hazel switch, and a length of
thread with a bent pin on the end of it, pulling
out sticklebacks with shouts of triumph ?

My own first trout from the Darent, or
indeed elsewhere, was caught at the opposite
end of the village, and I fear was secured in
anything but a legitimate manner, but, as will
be shown, the method was wholly justifiable.
Also it must not be forgotten that I was only
eight or nine years old at the time.

I was fishing for perch in one of the Squerryes
ponds one afternoon, when a small urchin out of
the village told me he knew where there was a
trout lying not far off, and took me down to the
very last house at the west end of the village.
Opposite this house was a ditch, which contained
water at times, but in very dry weather held
none. When there was water therein, it even-
tually found its way to the Darent, so we'll call
it one of the numerous head-waters thereof,
please. . Spanning this trickle was a little brick

""- 243

sporting Recollections

bridge under which was a tiny pool, at the
outside eighteen inches deep. In this tiny pool,
puddle if you will, there lay that excellent boy's
trout, and not a bad one. If disturbed he went
out of sight under the bridge, but returned in a
moment and remained poised in the gently
moving current. I tried a worm. Not a bit
of it ! He wouldn't look at it. Paid not the
very slightest attention. Did not even move
when it touched his cheek. I fancy he had
seen worms, not unconnected with a boy, pre-
viously. This gave me pause. Can a boy of
eight have pause ? I am well aware he can
have cheek. I then crawled gently on to the
bridge and lay with my nose not two feet from
that of the trout below me. Half his body was
clear of the brickwork. If a paragraph from
T/ie Fields which periodical was, I think, in its
infancy in those days, had been printed on that
trout's side, I could have read every word of it
with much ease. What a situation for a child
of eight, as keen as ten thousand acres of mustard,
who had never yet caught a trout, but was
blessed wishful. I got hold of my line, stripped
the worm from the hook and slowly, slowly,
lowered that same towards the trout's gleaming
side. It reached him, it touched his side, it
went beneath it, and there was a switch and it
was in him ! It held manfully, and after a little
244

Of an Old 'Un

desperate splashing I was able to hoist him out on
to the bank. His end was peace. Weight one
pound and seven ounces, and I am unashamed !
nay, rather, I glory over that one trout more
than over the ninety-and-nine just persons, I
mean the tens of thousands of fish taken since
with orthodox lures, ranging from the fifty-pound
Nansen salmon to innocent troutlings " guddled "
for stocking purposes from tiny Kentish brooklets.
But I hadn't heard the last of that trout. A
few days afterwards I got a messsage from " The
Squire " of those days that he wanted me. " So,
boy ! I hear you've been poaching my trout."
He was a very angry Squire indeed, I don't
think I ever saw the old gentleman so moved. I
don't remember that his wrath in any way either
disturbed or distressed me ; why should it ? But
what did distress me very much indeed was that
the spiteful old gentleman wholly withdrew my
permission to catch perch or indeed anything
else in any of the waters of his kingdom. That,
indeed, rent my very heartstrings in twain. In
his lifetime that permission was never renewed,
but when other and very much kinder people
succeeded and reigned in his stead, all was well,
and has indeed so remained through the long
vista of years that have passed away since my
first trout died. As a matter of fact, the trout I
had inveigled — inveigled is, I think, a more

245

Sporting Recollections

ladylike word than poached — no more belonged
to that dear old irate Squire than it did to me
or the village "softie," unless the highroad was
his property. But no matter ! It's too late a
day now to adjust these piscatorial discrepancies,
and perhaps the addresses of some of the persons
concerned might engender complications.

" He makes sweet music with the enamelled stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
He overtaketh in his pilgrimage.
And so by many winding nooks he strays
With willing sport to the wild ocean."

I never read these lines without thinking of
the dear little Darent, and what it has been in
the days of the past, when its glistening shallows
were paved with gravel that was golden in the
sunlight, and its waters, that were clear, innocuous
and sweet-savoured, held trout — aye, indeed, and
plenty of them — that were bright, healthy and
well-shaped fish. All that is passed, and as far
as the river itself is concerned it has been turned
into a malodorous ditch, while its waters carry
little but tarry filth and putrescence down to the
ocean.

Truly its surroundings are, in some places,
where the hand of the builder has lacked power
to intrude, as lovely as ever. The magnificent
cedars, probably among the finest in Great
Britain, of Combe Bank — first home of electric
246

Of an Old 'Un

light in England — still wave their wide-spreading
branches aloft, and the ancient oaks of Lulling-
stone still whisper weird tales to us of the past.

Who among us can look down the Shoreham
Valley at sunset on a peaceful summer evening
and hear the distant sound of the Otford bells,
" the lowing herd," the " drowsy tinklings,"
and then in the gloaming the churr of the poor
persecuted nightjar, persecuted of fools and
fools only, because, forsooth ! some howling idiot
of the past christened the lovely, innocent
creature " night hawk" without dreaming of
that " island valley of Avilion, where falls not
hail, or rain, or any snow, nor ever wind blows
loudly " ? Yes, such scenes as these — and there
are many in " Glen Darent " — make us think of
poor King Arthur's country, where it is " deep-
meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns and
bowery hollows crowned with summer sea." In
that land " beyond these voices," let us hope, the
lovely Guinevere has sprung to him and claimed
him hers, and that he has at last healed him of
his grievous v/ound.

As time went on my fishing career developed,
and I got chances of casting my flies, yes ! and
perchance other lures into waters far removed
from the dear little Darent. A long summer,
when I was about ten or eleven, found me
fishing many German streams. I was with my

247

sporting Recollections

people, and was allowed to wander about alone
and unrestrained all over the country at my own
wild will. A most excellent education. At
Langen-Schwalbach I very soon found a nice-
looking little stream in which I ascertained
dwelt in pristine innocence trout, grayling and
chub. It required no conjurer to make them
change their element. They may possibly have
seen some weird German abortions of things
called flies that I had observed in a gun-maker's
window, but from the avidity with which they
accepted my more seductive ones supplied by
Farlow, I imagine they had never had a decently
tied fly presented to their notice before.

In all my wanderings I was never interfered
with but once. I was fishing in a lovely mill-
tail a few miles down that pretty little Schwal-
bach stream, and had caught some eight or ten
decent trout and grayling, which were lying on
the grass beside me. Then to me entered the
miller, a ponderous person of some twenty stone,
pipe in mouth and basket in hand. He stooped,
with difficulty I grant, and transferred every
one of my fish to his basket, and giving me
a nod walked back to his mill without a word,
and I saw him no more. Alas ! not yet had I
any command of that German tongue so prolific
in swear-words ; not yet had my little fists
learned to hold their own when their owner
248

Of an Old 'Un

was interfered with in his fishing operations,
nefarious or otherwise, in the streams of the
Fatherland. As time went on, however, my
tongue I fancy, became quite expert in the use
of choice expletives in German and many other
languages, and my little fists became larger and
harder and were able to give lessons in the noble
art of self-defence to obese millers and other
interfering folk. After I had been so " fairly
downrightly robbed," to quote my old friend
Soapy Sponge, of my fish by that greedy fat
man, I was too depressed to fish any more and
probably be robbed again, so I wandered off
home and sought advice. In due course we
found that we knew the owner of the stream.
He most kindly gave me in writing the freest
permission to fish the whole of his water. He
also stated on such permission that any one
interfering with me in any way would " catch
it." To the owner of that stream be peace !
May he repose on the softest of sofas and in the
brightest of bowers, and may many sirens stand
by to bring him drinks, and soothe him with
rapturous melodies on golden harps !

After Schwalbach the Neckar, with scarcely
a trout in it and no grayling at all. So I was
reduced to chub, and only small ones. I don't
think I got any of more than a pound and a
half. -There were some "whackers" in the river,

249

Of «■■ ■ ■ '"•

Sporting Recollections

I know, for I saw them for sale in the market,
and, moreover, years afterwards, when I could
fairly well hold my own even with a Neckar
boatman in his riverside lingo, I helped to net
scores of them up to four and five pounds in
weight. I daresay they could have been caught
by any skilful angler who knew how to catch
chub. I most certainly didn't, nor do I know
any more about it to-day than I did then.

I remember a day many years ago, when, far
away from the Rhineland, I caught some chub,
about twenty trout and a whopping great eel.
That gives the show away. Yes, I confess it, I
was fishing with worms in the very bushy places,
but I caught all the trout with flies, and on the
whole had an uncommonly jolly day.

When we are travelling north, about ten miles
from Carlisle on the Caledonian Railway, close
to a station called Gretna, a little river called
the Sark can be plainly seen as it flows under
the railway. Yes, it is the same Gretna that we
have so often read of in connection with gallop-
ing horses, impetuously planned journeys, and
hurried marriage ceremonies ; the same Sark
that gave the name " Scott o' the brig " to the
easy ofliciator who tied the nuptial knot. The
river Sark for some miles is the boundary
between England and Scotland, and it was pos-
sible in the days of which I write to fill a good-
250

Of an Old 'Un

sized creel with the denizens of its waters. For
all I know to the contrary it may be so still. I
only fished it on that single occasion, and I don't
know why I did so at all, for I had at that time
scores and scores of miles of infinitely better
fishing all over the Border country at my dis-
posal. I can only suppose that all the larger
rivers were in high spate.

I referred a little way back to a big eel. I
got him out, and he lay on the bank twisting
my line after the manner of his kind into hope-
less and slimy tangles. I hate eels, /. e. except
Test eels, and on a plate — boiled first to take the
grease out, then fried, and then on the plate ;
and after that meal away to the banks of that
same well-beloved Test with a rod and line, and
on the end of it what the gods in their fishy
wisdom may direct — olive dun, hare's ear, quill
gnat, or perchance a Mayfly. I would sooner,
much sooner, handle an adder than an eel. I
therefore told my ghillie for the day, a lad of
sixteen, to take it off the hook. He looked at
me in utter disgust, spat on the ground and
spake : " Me ! I'll no touch the muckle brute ! "

On the subject of eels I may possibly give the
youthful and enterprising angler a tip. The
mature angler, unless he be, like me, a confirmed
poacher, will care for none of these things, also
he will prefer to keep dry. When we are fishing

251

Sporting Recollections

a small stream that turns occasional mill-wheels,
we shall usually find flowing from the mills
small side streams. I have often noticed in the
middle of the day, probably the dinner-hour,
that these are at their lowest. If the sun is out
and you carefully examine the small pools of two
or three feet deep, you will see eels wriggling
about on the bottom. A hook on a piece of
string and a foot or two of stick will easily do
the rest, and half a creelful of the slimy but
nutritious beasts is provided.

Confession, they say, is good for the soul, and
that's all right. Then I will at once confess
that I am an innate poacher, but at the same
time a legitimate one. I have never to the best
of my remembrance taken a fish, either salmon
or trout, in any unorthodox method without
the full approval and cognizance of the ow^ner
thereof. I have inveigled many a salmon, and
I have tickled scores of trout, but never a single
one but at the request of the owner of the
fishing. I honestly believe that the owners have
taken, if possible, even more delight in the varied
but nefarious proceedings than I have myself.

Some years ago, when some relations of mine
were living at a place on the Darent, before
mentioned, called Combe Bank, some three miles
below Westerham, there had been a good deal of
talk about tickling trout. The general opinion
252

Of an Old 'Un

seemed to be that the successful tickHng of trout
did not exist, that it was just talk and nothing
else. I was asked what I thought about it. I
smiled benignly and offered to demonstrate, not
what I thought about it, but what I knew. Shortly
afterwards we assembled on the bank of the river.
There were present Hughie Spottiswoode, the
owner of Combe Bank ; Count de Baillet, the
tenant of house, shooting and fishing ; our friend
Stephen Marchant and the head keeper. So it
is evident that this thing was not done in a
corner. I got into the water at a certain pool,
where was an old alder stump with a perfect
tangle of roots at a bend in the stream. The
pool, as I well knew, contained many trout,
which invariably when disturbed fled for shelter
to the roots. I walked all over the pool, which
was about up to my hips, to frighten the fish to
their holts, and then proceeded to feel about in
the roots. I found many trout, and handed out
about a dozen, in size from four to twenty-four
ounces, from that one corner. I knew pretty
well where all the fish in the stream lay, and
where the best hiding-places were.

It is not at all difficult to catch trout in that
manner, not nearly so much so as people seem to
think. When trout are worried, harried about,
and frightened they, so to speak, sit exceedingly
close,, and it is an easy matter, as a rule, to get

253

sporting Recollections

one's fingers round them and hold them firmly
and surely. But one has to get very wet indeed.
It is perfectly useless to try and tickle trout suc-
cessfully without getting into the water. I was
in the stream on that particular afternoon for
about three hours, and was blue with cold when
I had finished. I was often, when groping in
under the banks feeling for fish in rat-holes and
other hiding-places, entirely submerged, head
and all. Yes, it was uncommonly cold work.
I must, however, admit that the spectators
appeared to be well entertained, and were by
no means backward in applauding. I got out
altogether very nearly fifty fish, of which a very
few of the best were sent away as presents.
These were all over a pound in weight. All the
rest were returned to the stream.

I remember, after that watery episode, I found
my way with Hughie Spottiswoode to the
King's Arms at Westerham to join in with the
" Authentics " for cricket. I got warm again
by bedtime, which was, as usual in that festive
crowd, none too early. That was by far the
longest and coldest innings I ever had tickling
trout. But I was never the least the worse for a
moment.

I was once walking along the bank of the
Darent with the owner of that particular part of
the country, when he scoffingly asked me if I
254

Of an Old 'Un

had ever heard anything about this " infernal
rot " as to tickUng trout. I asked him, " Shall
I show you what I believe about it ? " I went
to a little pool close by, got into it — it was
barely above my knees, but I knew it held
several half-pound trout — stirred it up well, and
then stooped. down and felt about a bit in under
the bank. In but few seconds I stood upright
again with a trout in each hand, saying at the
same time, "That's what I believe, old man,

about tickhng trout." " Well, I am d d ! "

was his only and perchance somewhat too
previous exclamation.

One more tickling episode, a most unfortunate
and unsatisfactory one, and we will leave the
poor trout in peace. I was with my old and
cheery friend Jack Hervey, a friend of more
years than he, at any rate, will care to think of,
and of endless sporting episodes, at Hadlow.
There is a stream there which at the time con-
tained a few, a very few trout ; but they were
" whoppers." Jack pulled me out of bed at
some ungodly hour in the morning, four I
believe it was, and took me off to the river to
search for and try to tickle one of these whoppers.
Think of it, please ! A chilly morning although
in summer, before sunrise, and I was asked to
get into a river nearly — in places quite — up to
my armpits and search among roots, under banks,

255

sporting Recollections

and in watery recesses for big though somewhat
mythical fishes. Now, wonderful to relate, after
about an hour I found one and ran him to earth,
so to speak, among some roots. Yes, he was a
" whopper " all right, nearer four pounds than
three, I should say — for, alas ! I never weighed
him. I got my trusty eight fingers and two
thumbs round him and held him as firm as a
rock, and could so have held him until the day
of judgment. But woe is me, I grasped, as well
as the trout, a root as thick as my finger, and
could not get him away. " A knife. Jack, a
knife for Gawd's sake, or we are all lost." Jack
had no knife and mine was right away down
below there in my breeches pocket, and if any
one will kindly tell me how I could have got it
out with both my hands most fully occupied in
holding the fish — and the blessed root — I shall
be obliged. So I had to let him go ! No, I
couldn't find the brute again, although I care-
fully groped my way round every corner of the
pool. I should think he went on swimming
swiftly away down-stream till he struck the
Thames at Sheerness.

I can recall yet another episode in connection
with tickling trout in the Darent, and it has
been one of the great sorrows of my life that I
was not particeps crimints. Although I was not
present I heard of all that occurred during that
256

Of an Old 'Un

particular mudlark, not only from poor old Ned
McNiven himself, who was in the centre of
the stage, but also from the other actors and
spectators. There were present George Pyne,
one of the best fishermen who ever threw line
into the Irish Blackwater ; Horlock, one of the
finest and most intrepid horsemen of his day,
who down in the West Country jumped his black
horse over the two railway gates on to and off
the line, and afterwards became a most wonder-
fully good and successful missionary in the wilds
of North America, where I believe he died ;
old John Board was there, too, well known as
a regular follower of the Surrey staghounds in
the days of Squire Heathcote, and later on old
Tom Nickalls, the West Kent and the old
Surrey foxhounds. One of my brothers was
also present. I had the details from all of them,
and personally I believe every word of it. The

reader can do just exactly what he well,

pleases. Is it the least probable that a man
who, just for a lark — his last, alas ! — and with a
laugh drove over a bank and ditch standing
upright in his dog-cart, would be the least back-
ward over exploring the depths of a pool in the
little Darent .? The pool to my certain know-
ledge was about six or seven feet deep and held
many trout. McNiven wanted those trout.
They were stowed away in under the bank
s ' 257

sporting Recollections

somewhere near the bottom and he couldn't
reach them. So what did the raving lunatic do
but persuade two of his companions to hold him
by the legs head downwards while he grovelled
about with his hands after the fish. Anon he
kicked furiously and was duly raised on to the
bank again, firmly grasping a trout in each
hand.

Before I proceed to relate a few more trifling
adventures and experiences in connection with
legitimate fishing, I think it would be well, and
at the same time ease my soul a good deal, if I
cast behind me at once, at any rate some of the
less legitimate contests I have had — some suc-
cessful, some very much the contrary — with the
denizens of the deep.

" Snatching " big carp is by no means bad
sport and requires a certain amount of craft. I
have not, I regret to say, the pleasure of the
acquaintance of any carp-fisher. If I had I
should assure him, on the sacred word of a
brother li — , I mean fisherman, that nothing on
earth should induce me to " snatch " or capture
by any nefarious process even a carp or any other
equally unattractive monster, if there was the
least chance of my interfering with the sport of
any legitimate angler. I have the most intense
admiration for the infinite patience evinced and
skill displayed in the methods of the carp-fisher
258

Of an Old 'Un

ere he can hope to be successful in his sport.
Is a carp good to eat ? He doesn't look it. I
have never tried, and God forbid I ever should.
I should expect very shortly to swell and anon
to drop down dead. No, I don't eat 'em, but
when by some nefarious process I have succeeded
in securing two or three of the wily brutes, I
usually take them to the nearest young tame
pheasants, hang them up in adjacent trees, so
that from them anon shall drop many maggots,
and in death they are blessed which in life were
so eminently unattractive.

But how to circumvent the wily Cyprinus ?
Take unto you an ordinary spinning-rod and
line, and on the end of the main line affix three
large salmon hooks back to back ; to the bend
of any one of the hooks tie eighteen inches of
thread with a cork at the end ; on to your main
line at spaces three, six and nine feet from the
hooks bite three No. 6 shot. Are you begin-
ning to twig ? No ? Not yet ? Well then,
we'll get on. Then, having obtained full per-
mission from the owner of the water where you
propose to carry out your most nefarious scheme,
it being a bright summer day, June for choice,
go and stand on the bank where the water in
front of you is fairly deep, and watch. You will
soon be aware of weird, dimly seen, ghostly great
forms swimming along before you, appearing,
S2 259

Sporting Recollections

disappearing, and appearing again. Now to
work ! Cast forth your line some distance
in front of one of these dim forms, and you will
observe that your hooks are kept near the surface,
while there is a sunken belly in your line, and
over this, if you have not been clumsy, your
carp will assuredly swim. At the supreme
moment pull, my son ! pull like blazes, and if
all is well you will find yourself stuck in a carp
of whatever weight you choose to put him at.
I grant the victory is not worthy of record in
history, but I place the sport of snatching carp
a long way in front of catching dozens of three-
ounce roach from a punt, even when you take
into consideration the wicker-covered jar that
reposes at your side.

There was a small Hampshire stream very
much overgrown in which years ago I was
allowed to work my wild will to the uttermost.
As this stream was once a year systematically
netted with a pole-net, and all the fish kept and
given away by the owner, there was no occasion
to be bashful. There was a certain culvert about
thirty inches in diameter and ten yards in length,
blocked at the end by a hatchway, and in passing
this one day I saw some trout disappear into its
recesses. Now the question that arose in my
mind was, what becomes of those trout ? I
would very soon find out. I stripped to the
260

Of an Old 'Un

waist and proceeded to explore, I found that by
turning my head sideways I could j/ist breathe,
but only just, for the water was very near the
top of the brickwork. I crawled on and on
along the weird and watery way, and as I neared
the end, hurrah ! there were my trout right
enough with their noses all up against the wooden
hatchway. Of course they could have evaded
me easily enough by darting past me and so
back into the river, but that method of escape
didn't seem to strike them. Back I crawled and
got my landing-net. Armed with that I set to
work. Directly I got a fish into it I pressed the
net against the top of the culvert and so crawled
back with him safely. I had to get them one
by one. There were nine of them and I got
the lot, and they were about three-quarters of a
pound apiece. While I was thus engaged with
the trout a water-rat and an eel tried to pass me
and I annexed both of them. By the time I
had finished I was stiff all over, but it was an
entirely novel mode of trout-fishing and amusing
withal.

If this account ever catches the eye of one
" Ballygunge," who was in those days a great
friend of mine, he will, I fancy, laugh a good
deal, but not so vociferously as he did at the
time, for he was sitting close by looking on at
the performance, and at the end of the day took

261

Sporting Recollections

away his share of the trout. I have no recollec-
tion, however — no, not the slightest — of his
making any offer at all as to doing his share of
crawling along that subterranean waterway.

At the top of the Compton Water on the
Test, close alongside of that beautiful pool
formed by the main stream from Bossington as
it flows under the bridge, is a most peculiar hole.
It appears to be made by a very strange subter-
ranean flow of water, of unknown depth, and
comes to the surface bubbling up as clear as
crystal. At the top of this peculiar flow of water
lived a trout of about four pounds — as a matter
of fact he was three pounds and thirteen ounces.
He was even in those waters of shy fish the most
absolutely wary old fellow I ever had to deal with.
A glimpse of a shining rod over your shoulder, a
footfall of ordinary weight on the bank within
twenty yards of him, would send him off to the
unknown depths of his lair like a flash of light-
ning. When undisturbed this peculiar fish always,
so to speak, stood on his head, his nose pointing
to the depths from which the current flowed,
and his tail waving backwards and forwards close
to the surface of the water. Eyes in his tail he
did not possess, as I discovered later, but his
crafty habits and the marvellous rapidity of his
sight would lead one to think otherwise.

One morning my host, Tom Mann (no rela-
262

Of an Old 'Un

tive, verily, of him who has lately on Tower
Hill — yes, and for some days elsewhere in retire-
ment ! — been so prominently before the public),
one of the very finest dry-fly fishermen I ever
knew, and I had most carefully stalked to within
range of, and were watching that fish, who as
usual was standing on his head. " D — n that
fish ! " remarked my companion, " I hate the
sight of him, always lying there wrong side up
and not a bit of good to anybody. Can't you
get the brute out, old man .? Surely you can
think of some of your infernal poaching dodges
to circumvent him." " Oh yes, " I replied, " I
can get him out all right in the course of the
next few days if you wish it ; but — " I added
with a wink, " it won't be with a dry fly, you
know."

I made my plans forthwith. I took a willow
wand and a piece of string with three salmon
hooks lapped on the end, which I bound on to
the wand. I then covered the whole thing
lightly over with weeds and fixed it in the hole
so that the hooks were invisible in the weed,
but were close to where the fish was usually
watching for what the upward flow of the stream
might bring him. It brought him just a little
more than he expected. A day or two after I
had placed my trap I crawled very stealthily up
to the side of the hole, and inch by inch raised

363

Sporting Recollections

my grass-adorned cap above the level of the
water. Yes, he was there right enough, and his
beautiful white belly and spotted side lay unpro-
tected not three inches away from the hooks.
I had half a mind to retire from the contest and
let him go, for I felt sure that he was mine.
But although he was indeed a lovely fish he was
no earthly good to any one in that hole, and was
better out of it. Gently, gently, I put out my
hand, took hold of my willow wand, gave one
sharp snatch and had him. A more absolutely
perfect fish I never saw, not even from the
radiant reaches of the silver Test. In due course
I took him to the fishing hut and laid him out
on the marble slab. All poor dear old Tom
Mann had to say about it after all my patience
and craft was : " Well, Stretty, you are the

d 1 old poacher I ever came across ! "

Now, does the following story come under
the heading of poaching, or otherwise ? I fancy
it might be called " illegitimate angling in alien
waters." It had certainly a very close connec-
tion with a basket. I was one day fishing the
Itchen at Bishopstoke with one Hugh Bellamy.
We had partaken of lunch at the little village
inn, and were seated in an upper chamber, smok-
ing our pipes in much peace, and watching
the stream as it flowed along by the high-road
below us. A carrier's van came creaking down
264

Of an Old 'Un

the village street, and pulled up exactly beneath
our window. The carrier, good soul, got down,
and after the manner of his kind passed within
the welcome portals for a quencher — more power
to his elbow ! — leaving his van unattended. On
the top of the van, not more than six or seven
feet below us, sat a large wicker basket full of
ladies' pretty things on their way -home from
the washerwoman. Yes ; they were much too
light for masculine attire. I lay me down on
the window-sill, and inch by inch the trusty
Hugh lowered me down towards that basket
by the ankles. I seized it in my hands, and
was safely pulled once more, basket and all, into
that upper chamber. In due course, the carrier
came out wiping his mouth with the back of
his hand, mounted his van and drove away.
Then we also, having paid our bill at the bar,
took our departure, leaving that blessed basket
sittins: in the middle of the room. Alas ! I
know nothing more. But I would have given
much to have seen that carrier's face when, having
duly arrived at the house where he was wont
to deposit that weekly basketful of feminine
frillies, he looked on the top of his van and
found it void.

I once heard of a very peculiar fish being
safFed in the waters of the Shin in Sutherland,
and this fish was no other than my dear old

265

V :iftief ,;?

sporting Recollections

friend Redvers Buller — peace to his memory !
Many is the night that we have lain side by
side on Mother Earth when engaged in hunting
Kafir braves among the kloofs and krantzes of
the Amatola mountains. Verily he was one
of the bravest men I ever knew, the staunchest
of friends, and, they tell me, the hardest of
masters. I, at any rate, never found him so.
And one day he fell prone into the perilous
waters of the Shin. I had the account of this
adventure from the lips of the very ghillie him-
self who had cleeked the gallant soldier from
that rushing torrent. It is given to but few
Scotch henchmen to save a full-blown general
with endless letters after his name — including
those coveted two " for valour " — from, per-
chance, a rocky and watery grave, by gaffing
him in the seat of the breeches and dragging
him safely and surely to land. The adventure
had evidently left a very sweet savour in the
nostrils of that ghillie ; and as I sat outside the
hostel at Inveran, watching the lovely river
flowing by with occasional bars of silver leaping
from its depths, it most evidently was with no
small pleasure that he related the somewhat
large share in it that had fallen to his lot. I
would indeed that the gallant soldier were among
us once more, and in full vigour to cast his
lures, or even himself, yet once again into the
260

Of an Old 'Un

rapids of the Shin, or, better still, into his own
well-loved waters of Devon.

My before-mentioned host, one S — M, on
a certain occasion summoned me unto him
to go and fish a very good salmon river in
Ireland. He had taken it for the months of
April and May, and when we took it over it was
already at midsummer level, and the weather,
though most entrancing for the tourist, was
hopelessly depressing for the poor salmon-fisher.
In our first week we managed to circumvent
three fish by legitimate methods, /. e. if you are
so generous as to consider that shrimps are legiti-
mate methods. After that, it was hopeless —
wholly and utterly hopeless — and we gave way
to quoits, losing a few dozen golf-balls in un-
mown grass, and reading inferior periodicals,
accompanied by a ceaseless flow of language that
left a good deal to be desired. The river shrank
and shrank day by day, carrying on its bosom,
as it meandered slowly and solemnly by, house-
hold relics from the cottages above — perchance
a worn-out besom, Molly Maguire's discarded
petticoat, Patsy's lost caubeen minus his pipe,
and a few dead kittens and puppies. We had
hopes of hooking a defunct baby, but were dis-
appointed. Indeed, at one time towards the
end of our sojourn, such a varied assortment of
filth and rubbish of many kinds came floating

267

Sporting Recollections

down-stream, that we were not altogether with-
out hope that we might one morning discover
a drowned home-ruler hitched up by the seat of
his ragged breeches in a willow stump. If we
had done so, we should, of course, have held
our noses, poled him out into the stream, and
let him pass along to other scenes. But, alas !
we had no luck under the heading " Home
Rule."

One evening S — M remarked that he was sick
of it, and should be off to Punchestown races on
the morrow, and stay away for a day or two.
He also added a few remarks about the fishing
of a distinctly blasphemous and inapplicable
nature. He asked if I would come too. I was
grateful, but declined. " But, my dear chap,
what will you do to amuse yourself while I'm
away ? " he asked. I replied that I would ^s/i.
At which he snorted. Then I added, " Look
here, I'll bet you a sovereign I catch a salmon
before ever you get to Dublin." " The devil
doubt you will, you poaching old villain, as soon
as ever my back is turned." And so, after
breakfast, clad in garments suitable for the classic
race-meeting rather than for the riverside, he
took his way for the railway station and, later,
the races.

In due course when he reached Dublin he
went straight to his hotel, and there found a
268

Of an Old 'Un

telegram awaiting him. There were two words
only written on it. They ran simply " Got
him." It was quite enough to explain the
whole situation to S — M. I would that I could
have seen his face as he read it.

Later in the day I was strolling along the
river-bank very slowly and cannily, and became
aware of a salmon lying apparently asleep in the
shade close under me. Down I went on my
tummy, crawled along to the bank above him,
and put my head inch by inch over his nose. I
could see his fins and his scales and all that was
his just as plainly as if I had had him on a dish
on the table. I put my rod on the bank " con-
vaneant " — as Pat would say — and took the line
in my hand, and there happened to be a salmon
hook at the end of it. Slowly and gently I
lowered it under his gill and twitched it in just
as easily as I could have put my fork into an
oyster. He woke up just about as quickly as
a slumbering schoolboy wakes when you chuck
a jugful of cold water into his bed in the middle
of the night. He made one tremendous rush
right across the river and threw himself out on
the other bank. But he was soon in again, and
in due course came to the gaff, and was about
twenty pounds. When S — M returned from
Punchestown he was anxious to be initiated
into some of my methods. I showed him one

269

Spo

rtlng Recollections

or two, and I rather think that on one occasion
he went so far as to rouse a salmon that was
soundly sleeping in the shade with a phantom, a
piece of lead and a triangle or so. So suddenly was
that salmon awakened, so wild and frantic were his
rushes, and so abnormal were his antics that the
amusement was enormous. Altogether we caught
five, and only five, by these somewhat peculiar
methods, and I think we were moderate. They
were all caught with rod, hook and line. Can I
say fairer .? The rent of the river for the two
months was very nearly >(^2oo. During more
than half that time the water was left without
a rod on it, as it was perfectly useless. Surely
he would be a very exacting critic indeed who
would grudge one half a dozen salmon at a cost
in rent alone of over ^(^30 apiece. I verily believe
that during that most abnormally dry summer,
had an expert angler who knew all the tricks of
the trade happened to be on the spot, and seen
fit he could sooner or later have caught every
fish in that particular stretch of the river.

270

CHAPTER IX

South Hampshire chalk streams, but more especially the Test —
One John and his little ways — A drive with John — A sail
with John — John's breeches — 'Punt gunning with John,
not if I know it — God bless his lordship's steam launch-
Memories of the past in South Hampshire^More Test —
Poor dry-fly men can't catch trout unless they see them
^^ splashing about " — General Blowhard, (i) as a fisherman,
(2) as a puntman, (3) as a liar, but the greatest of these is
Number 3 — Some whackers of the Test — Three lambs at
Chilbolton.

There were at one time a good many salmon dis-
eased with " fungus " in a certain very deep pool
in the river Lyon near Fortingal in Perthshire.
The late Sir Donald Carrie's head keeper Ford
had implored me to get out, by any means, as
many of these brutes as I possibly could. One
bright sunny day, when legitimate fishing was
quite hopeless, I was endeavouring to locate
diseased fish with a view to " snatching them."
While lying on a rock peering down into the
depths of the black water below me I became
aware of a white patch about as big as half a
crown wandering slowly to and fro some twelve
feet below me. Of course, although at that
depth I could not distinguish a sign of the fish
itself, I knew well it was a patch of fungus

271

Sporting Recollections

on a salmon's head. I sat down and carefully
rigged on to the end of my main line the three
biggest salmon hooks I could find among my kit
back to back. I fixed a tiny bit of my pocket-
handkerchief about the size of two postage
stamps on to one of the hooks, so that I could
see in the deep water the exact position of my
dastardly weapon, and pulled the line through
the rings until the deadly contraption sat tight
against the top of the rod. Gently, gently I
lowered the point towards the white patch that
was still sailing about below me until I felt the
side of the fish. I lowered a little farther and
got the point of the rod in under him so
that I gradually lost sight of my tiny white
guide. Then I gave a jerk and was in him.
He fought well and was over twenty pounds,
and but for his one white patch was clean and
well-looking.

My worthy host made use of some oppro-
brious epithets as regards " stroke hauling," but
was anon more than anxious to take a hand him-
self. In the first place, however, I couldn't get
him to distinguish the fish, and when he could
twig one he always bungled it, for he was a
numb hand at fishing, legitimate or otherwise.
Snatching salmon is not learned in ten minutes.
It is not given to every one to scale the heights
of Olympus, nor to land salmon from the rivers
272

Of an Old 'Un

that water the plains around that historic
mountain.

Were I to give details of all the streams I
have fished or even their names, from the wilds
of Norway to the distant lochs and rivers of
Sutherland, and the more domestic but none the
less lovely and crystal clear streams that flow into
the Solent and help to bear away to those distant
lands of the West and elsewhere the grand liners
from Southampton, I should weary my poor
readers almost as badly as would records of the
catching of immature codlings, of baby whiting
and " aiblins even a sardine " from Calais pier, or
a bald unadorned list of trout taken by an angler
from the Itchen, with merely their weights from
the year eighteen hundred and God knows when
to the present day. Ah me ! the glorious fun I
have had fishing, shooting, hunting, racing in
that most lovely South Hampshire country :
Paradise of trout fishers. Memories of the past
come flooding across me. A book ? Verily I
could fill a shelf with cheery reminiscences of past
sport and the friends that took part therein.

Some time ago I received a telegram on this
wise : " Come along at once, peal are running."
Now the sender of the telegram was one John,
and the place where the peal were said to be
running was the Beauheu river in Hants. But
the time was early June, and, as I well knew,
T 273

sporting Recollections

peal-, /. e. sea-trout-, fishing in those waters did
not usually commence until about the middle
of July. I therefore cast an eye over the
telegram from one John, not altogether without
suspicion. Yes ! I knew John well and loved
him greatly. I was also acquainted with his
little ways, which were playful. Nevertheless
I packed up my kit and some fishing-tackle and
took my departure for the wilds of the New
Forest. In due course I met him at the station
and was far from surprised to observe a pawky
smile on his youthful and ingenuous face as he
greeted me.

" Well, John, and how about those peal ?
They've started running pretty early this season,
haven't they .? " I ventured to ask.

" Peal be blowed ! There ain't no peal or
likely to be yet awhile," replied John, with his
usual disregard of grammar, for not yet was he
an editor. Then he continued : " But, you see,
I am camping out in the Forest and want a
mate, and I knew you'd come along if I put
up that yarn about the peal. Wasn't absolutely
certain you'd swallow it though," he added with
a wink.

" Never mind, old man, we'll have a proper
good mudlark all the same." N.B. — And we
did.

On one occasion we went over to lunch at
274

Of an Old 'Un

Palace House, and when we got into the dining-
room were aware of two wooden kitchen chairs
at the table among the lordly red leather ones.
" What's up, my lord ? " asked John, pointing
to the humble seats. Said my lord : " Now if
you and Streatfeild are not wet through up to
your necks, I'll most humbly apologize and you
shall sit where you choose ; but if you are,
kitchen chairs for you both, my men." With
these yvords he came up to me and felt my
saturated shoulders. "Just so ! I knew it !"
said my lord. " Kitchen chairs, please, and no
doubt about it."

John's father was just about the most charming
man I ever had the privilege of meeting, and
although a typical Scotchman, possessed a most
abounding sense of humour, and was more than
ready to grasp the comic side of everything.
Woe is me, it must be a good deal more than
forty years ago when I first had the pleasure of
making friends with him, when we were both
shooting with Carpenter-Garnier at Rookes-
bury. And John was a very tiny little John
indeed in those days, and had not yet learned to
play tricks with motor-cars, or, by the same
token, to deceive his friends with idle and
mendacious tales of non-existent fishes.

One morning John's father called to me as he

stood looking out of the dining-room window

T2 275

Sporting Recollections

and spake thusly : " Now, my dear Streatfeild,
I ask you is that a suitable way for my son to
go about his own village and among his own
people ? " and as he spoke he pointed to the
said John, who was at the moment strolling
through the archway into the village. He was
without a coat, and from the appearance of his
nether attire the spectator might have thought
with justice that he had been sitting day and
night through the whole of his young life on
the very hardest, the most adamantine of kitchen
chairs, for there, displayed to our view, were
two frayed apertures through which John might
have thrust his best Sunday hat. I don't
altogether wonder that his lordship turned away
with a sigh.

John was a most expert wild-fowler, and down
that same Beaulieu river has slain unnumbered
hecatombs of fowl of all kinds, even down to a
real wild flamingo which I well remember his
securing. I have heard on the very best
authority that his superior as a wild-fowler,
with possibly the exception of Sir Ralph Payne
Gallwey, does not exist, and I fully believe it.
But oh ! John, John, where is that book on
wild-fowling that you promised to write so
many years ago, and for a sight of which your
friends, your publishers, and your reviewers
have looked and longed in vain ?
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Of an Old 'Un

Years ago during one arctic winter John
attempted — being in an exceedingly enterprising
frame of mind — to get me along with a view to
taking me out in a punt behind a very big gun,
and initiating me in the art of punt gunning.
Early on the morning of Christmas Day, after
one of the coldest nights ever experienced in
England, a punt was found near the mouth of
the Beaulieu river bottom up, and inside it,
underneath an enormous gun, was discovered
the body of a middle-aged man frozen stiff and
stark to the floor of the punt. The body was,
after much trouble and the use of a ?reat deal
of hot water, removed from the boards of the
punt and taken to Southampton to await an
inquest. Now had I fallen in with John's
views as to lessons in wild-fowling that body
would most assuredly have been mine. No,
thank you, John ! I took most particular and
infinite care that it should not be. I am well
aware that he used to appear at his home very
frequently at hours ranging from twelve mid-
night up to, or is it down to, six a.m., when the
thermometer was steady at somewhere about
zero, frozen to the marrow, but bearing with
him endless mallard, widgeon, teal, golden-eye,
etc. John loved it. To me it would have been
an exceedingly painful and I fancy lingering
death.

277

sporting Recollections

He once took me for a sail in their yacht. I
suppose she was about twenty-five or thirty tons.
We left Butler's Hard and sailed away down the
river, all standing, or sitting, or lying, as the
case may be — I know nothing whatever about
it, but I know I have read somewhere about a
yacht coming in "all standing." I dare say it was
in Punch, and maybe it contains a joke which I
am too ignorant to appreciate. I will confess
at once that beyond the saloon of an ocean-going
steamer I know no more of nautical affairs than
a pig does about snipe-shooting. There were
also on board, that voyage, a lady and her
husband, both exceedingly charming and in
every way what they should be ; also they
possessed exactly the same knowledge of nautical
matters that I did. I think we three passengers
might indeed have been Faith, Hope and
Charity, but the greatest of these was John. In
my humble opinion his bravery in setting forth
into the deep under such circumstances, and with
a stiff breeze blowing, amounted to nothing
short of the most reckless daring, for which
he deserved the Victoria Cross.

John took the tiller. The rest of the crew
took hold of, and pulled with might and main,
at any rope that was described to them, /. e. as
soon as they could grasp what part of the rigging
was referred to. It was what might be likened
278

Of an Old 'Un

to indescribable chaos, and also without form
and void. John talked of making for the Solent
and cruising about that well-known region. My
own belief was that if we had ever reached that
most undesirable haven we should very shortly
have been well outside the Needles and on the
high-road to Finisterre, for the wind appeared to
me to be not only decidedly contrary, but' was,
moreover, from the N.E. However, mercifully
we never reached the waters of the Solent, but, on
the contrary, the most blessed refuge of a mud-
bank, on which be peace, and on which we
grounded. In their efforts to be accommodating
and obedient John's crew pulled a rope too hard
or too soft, or perchance it was the wrong one
altogether, and amid a shower of most flowery
nautical language from our skipper, on to the
mudbank we sailed, stuck hard and fast, while
personally I returned most heartfelt thanks to
the sweet little cherub who sits up aloft to guard
unwary and ignorant voyagers, who had thus
timely supervened to eliminate that voyage to
Finisterre from the proceedings.

Now the tide was rising — isn't flowing the
correct term ? — which was well. Also John's
father and mother were returning from South-
ampton in a dear, delightful, blessed great
steam launch, which was still better. Never
have I -loved a vessel with such a love as I felt

2T9

orting Recollections

towards that steam launch. She towed us off
the mud, she took us on board, she gave us tea ;
and her owner chaffed us as I think I never was
chaffed either before or since, and upon my word
and honour I think we had fairly earned it.

One more trip did I go with John which
lingers yet in my memory, but it was on the
more trustworthy element. I fail, however, to
believe that any trip of any earthly description
undertaken with John as either skipper of a ship,
driver of an engine, Jehu of a hansom cab, or
chauffeur of a car, can be without a very distinct
element of peril to those who are under his
guidance, for in all of these varied capacities
have I been acquainted with John. I am, how-
ever, told that on the numerous occasions on
which he has taken over very exalted personages
into his charge his care and precaution have
always been spoken of as absolutely exemplary.

John was electioneering and had a meeting at
a village called Sowley, where was a great pond
in which I fished for perch in the water while
he angled for votes in mud. He took me to
Sowley in a two-wheel dog-cart at a pace not
exceeding some fifteen miles an hour. While
he endeavoured to capture his votes and I my
perch, the poor gee awaited us in an adjacent
hostel, I fear none too free from draughts
from his appearance when we started for
280

Of an Old 'Un

home. His trot left a great deal to be
desired. " So, you old beggar," quoth John,
" you can't trot, can't you ? My word then, we'll
see if you can gallop ! " He not only could gallop,
but did.

Between Sowley Pond and Palace House,
Beaulieu, are many corners. I give you my
word ! we went round each of them in turn on
but one wheel. No I luckily I am not nervous
on wheels. I fancy, in those days at any rate,
that any one who delivered himself over for a
season to John as guide, protector and friend had
better be without, wholly without, those most
unsatisfactory adjuncts to the human anatomy.
Were they still in statu quo I should have ventured
to predict a very speedy cessation of all interest
in mundane affairs for the unfortunate possessor
thereof.

What fun, too, the Hambledon Hunt races
were in those olden days, and long before the
above most excellent sportsman had made his
appearance on the scene. What numbers of
well-known faces can I recall that were always
to the fore on those occasions. Alas ! too many
will be seen no more. Poor old D'Albiac, " The
Treasure," of undying fame, if not winner of a
hundred fights, he was at any rate winner on
endless occasions of a hundred yards. Never
shall I forget one wild night in barracks at

281

sporting Recollections

Chichester, when " The Treasure " sped to the
winning-post like any greyhound, leaving most
of us the victims of misplaced confidence in the
strength of the " fizz " and the losers of many
shekels. Poor " Pussie " Sanderson too, who
has just passed away, and who with Charlie
RadclyfFe was always on hand. Arthur Yates, a
little different in figure now to what he was in
those days, but cheery as ever. Billy Greenwood
too, who was usually infinitely more "done" at
the finish of a race than his horse, but was indeed
the broth of a boy and made the pace a bit too
hot for the race of life. And that reminds me
of old George Wilder at Stansted and his coach,
always present at the Hambledon meeting, and
hundreds more that are passed away, or only to
be found in bath chairs or on crutches.

About the best of us all of those days, who is
still hale and hearty, and looks it, is old Courtenay
Tracy, who can still go with his otter-hounds
from start to finish, and still enjoy his pipe and
his whisky toddy. Good luck and longer life
to him. It is over sixty years since he and I
started hare-hunting together in West Kent,
where he lived in those days, with a pack of four
or five beagles, a couple of spaniels and a terrier,
and the best of the lot was a black spaniel. Aye !
and we killed many a hare too.

During the last forty years I have had the
283

Of an Old 'Un

good fortune, and chiefly owing to the great
kindness of numerous friends, to fish most of the
Test from Wherwell Priory to Broadlands. To
my mind there is no trout stream on earth to
compare to it. I have fished many other well-
known and celebrated waters — Itchen, Coin, Lea
and iMimram ; yea ! even the celebrated Pans-
hanger water at its best, and hundreds of other
pretty but less desirable fishings ; but I know of
nothing that has afforded me the same keen
enjoyment that I have derived from that lovely
and most peaceful Test valley. It is not only
the fishing. Nay ! there are thousands of other
things beyond the mere landing of the perfect
great trout, although the capture of each one of
these is a triumph that goes far to make up the
intense joy of life that comes to one there on a
fine May or June day. Look at that exquisite
sheet of flowers, bog-beans ; pick one and examine
it closely. Could aught be more lovely than its
delicate pink pencillings .? Where else can you
find such a perfect carpet as a border to your
" brimming river " ? Yonder is the pretty water
" Avens." You don't find that little flower
everywhere, nor the two " skullcaps " which are
both here, and in yonder hedge as you go down
towards Mottisfont Abbey are several patches of
the gracefully drooping " Solomon's Seal." Now
look up above you in the clear blue sky. Do

283

Sporting Recollections

you see that tiny speck of a bird rising up,
up, up with such ease, and then falling like a
bolt towards earth, only to rise again and yet
again and go through the same graceful down-
ward flight ? Listen ! You will notice there
is not a sound in the air when he is rising, but
as he hurls himself earthward there comes faintly
to our ears a sound of gentle drumming — bleat-
ing they call it — which is made by the two out-
side tail feathers as they vibrate like the wings
of a hawk-moth, in his descent.

By and by as we wander home in the gloam-
ing, how sweet to listen to the witching churr
of the poor nightjar as he sits on the oak bough,
or to his weird shriek as he flits across the open
glade, or to see the dim grey form of the barn
owl as he hunts across the meadows, and to hear
his cousins of the woodlands as they give forth
their melodious and weird serenade from among
the beeches. Verily to those who love Nature
and her endless voices could anything be more
soothing than such sounds and such sights as the
summer night comes peacefully on ?

I believe I could write volumes of a sort
as to the almost endless fishing I have had in
Hampshire streams alone. But I find that with
the exception of the writings of those who, beyond
being experts with the rod, are still greater and
more skilful wielders of the pen there is a woful
284

Of an Old 'Un

sameness. How could it be otherwise in merely
recording the ordinary capture of ordinary fish
in ordinary streams ? I have striven in the
feeble words I have written to avoid the well-
beaten path of the dry-fly purist and the wet-fly
expert among trout fishers, although during a
very great portion of my life I have, so to speak,
sat at their feet and endeavoured to emulate their
successes of skill and cunning. I shall therefore
say but little as to ordinary fly-fishing for trout
either wet or dry, feeling that the subject has
been already handled so frequently and so skil-
fully by hands that both with rod and pen are
far better than my own. I therefore purpose, as
far as in me lies, only to write about angling
episodes that appear to me to vary somewhat
from ordinary river-side incidents.

I have occasionally read in sporting periodicals
of trout being caught on the Test with wet fly.
I have never known it done. Of the Test above
Wherwell I know nothing. Below that part
of the river I ought to know a good deal. I
can vividly recall a most worthy if somewhat
ancient gentleman who one season about 1890
became a member of the old Houghton Club,
and who fished steadily through the whole of it
with a wet fly and down-stream and never rose
a fish.

One day at Chilbolton, when it was blowing

285

Sporting Recollections

a gale from the west and raining in torrents, any
other method of fishing being impossible, I fished
the whole day with a wet fly and never rose one
single fish, and I know my fly must have passed
over hundreds. I never saw so much as a bulge
in the water. In the Itchen, on the contrary, I
have caught many trout with wet fly. Five-and-
twenty years ago a good big Wickham's Fancy
fished wet in hatch-holes and rough water was
by no means an unattractive lure.

Seated one day — no, not " at the organ,"
although indeed I was very shortly to be made
" weary and ill at ease " — in a certain smoking-
room in Hampshire with old " South West," to
us entered our host, one " Ballygunge," with a
newspaper in his hand. He was indeed in a wax.
We were all of us members of the old Houghton
Club, then in existence.

" Listen, you fellows," he said, " and take it
over from this letter in this silly paper that you
don't know quite so much about dry-fly fishing
as you fancy." He then read aloud the letter in
question. It expressed an infinite amount of
pity for the poor dry-fly man, who, so it stated,
when removed to waters other than his own
beloved chalk streams, was lost, dead, buried,
and unable to catch a single fish, because, poor
soul, he didn't know where to cast for them ;
was indeed helpless unless, as in his own sacred
286

Of an Old 'Un

waters, the trout displayed their whereabouts by
their " splashing about," to use the words of the
letter.

" Ballygunge " snorted with indignation at
the idea of the tiny dimple made on the stream
by the rise of a Test trout being referred to as
" splashing about." Then he turned to me and
said, as he waved the paper, " Now, my boy,
out of this room you don't go and not one shot
this day do you fire until you have sat down at
that desk and written in your very strongest
publishable language an answer to the silly ass
that wrote that letter."

Now it was the 3rd September, a lovely day,
and birds were very plentiful. You may there-
fore be sure that the reply did not take long,
and that the aforesaid " silly ass " caught it. In
due course he admitted that the "splashing
about " was the thing that was not, and that the
words had been used at random.

These things bring to memory a somewhat
peculiar day spent on one of the very best
stretches of the old Test, during which the
"splashing about" was conspicuous by its ab-
sence. It was a week or two before Mayfly
time that my host (not " Ballygunge " this time)
said to me one fine morning : " Look here,
old chap, will you, hke a good man, give
up your own fishing to-morrow and look after

287

Sporting Recollections

old General Blowhard, who is coming along
and is most frightfully keen to catch a Test
trout ? "

" Hasn't he ever caught one ? "

" Never ! But he's blessed willing," was the
reply.

I couldn't help ejaculating " O Lord !"

" You don't seem to think much of the job,"
said my host.

" My dear man, I shall be only too delighted
to do my level best to get the gallant gentleman
stuck in a fish, and honestly it will be nothing
but a pleasure. I know all about the old cock,
but I have never heard that he could fish. Look
here ! I'll bet you ten sovereigns to one that
he doesn't catch a thirteen-inch trout." And
answer was there none.

Next morning, sure enough, the old General
came along and was given over into the hands of
the tormentor. He produced the tackle with
which he proposed to fish. There was nothing,
absolutely nothing, that would be the very
slightest use to a god-fearing Test trout, while
his landing-net was constructed to fit over the
top of his hat, which was white straw. O ye
gods and little fishes ! Test fishes ! A white
hat that you could see about a quarter of a mile
off" to let you all know that the gallant General
Blowhard was on the war-path, and a landing-
288

Of an Old 'Un

net possibly just capable of landing a half-
pounder. Rather to his dismay, the General's
kit was left in the keeper's lodge, and I rigged
him up with suitable appliances. But nothing
would induce him to discard his beastly straw
hat, and he scoffed at the very idea of its making
any difference to the fish. Not yet was General
Blowhard acquainted with the manners and
customs of Test trout. A fair sprinkle of blue
duns were sailing down the stream, but as my
friend " Detached Badger " was fishing some
live miles higher up the stream, I did not trouble
to ascertain their sexes.

I soon spotted a good fish rising steadily some
thirty yards above us close in under our bank.
" There you are, sir," said I to the old General,
and pointed with the landing-net handle to the
fish, who was sucking down some ten flies
a minute. Do you imagine I could get that
dear, good old man to see that fish rising .? Not
one bit of it ! So much for " splashing about,"
and let me assure those who are not accustomed
to look for rising fish on a Hampshire chalk
stream, that the angler unaccustomed to the
work may easily pass a score of rising trout on a
breezy day without seeing or hearing a single
one of them.

We got to within twenty yards of our fish,

not ours yet, though, by many lengths. I dare

" 289

Sporting Recollections

not go any closer, for old Blowhard totally
refused to go down on his knees. I have
noticed frequently that kneeling is a position
that these military swells don't greatly hanker
after. (All right, Sir Evelyn ! All right !
This is not to your address.) Well, I was
almost in despair. At length the old cock said
he would go up above the fish and chuck down
to him. O Lord ! " My dear sir," I replied,
" Test trout won't stand that little game."
However, he insisted, and walked up not six
feet from the bank. Need I say that a big
wave went across the stream and a bonny three-
pounder disappeared into the depths.

After a time the poor old boy got a little cross
— I don't wonder — and said he thought he
should get on better alone. Honestly, the
attempt to get that poor old man stuck in a
Test trout was on a par with the making a small
boy translate an intricate passage of Euripides
before ever he had learned the Greek alphabet.
So I left the old General to his own devices, and
as I departed I saw him in the distance standing
upright on the very edge of the river, clad in a
long black waterproof coat and casting steadily
down-stream.

Two or three hours later I approached him
again with a view to lunch in the fishing hut.
As I drew near I became aware from the swish
290

Of an Old 'Un

of his line that his cast was gone. " You've lost
your cast, General," I called out. " Do you take
me for a d d fool ? " was the morsel of em-
broidery that came back in reply. I made no
answer to that, but thought a good deal. The
cast, however, was gone sure enough. " Never
did such a thing before in my life. Who would
have believed it ?" etc., etc., etc.

Poor old General ! It evidently wasn't " his
day out." He made a most excellent lunch
though, and was so full of beans afterwards that
he offered to punt across the river two of the
ladies of our party who wanted some flowers
that grew on the other side. They started. I
winked at our host, but we said never a word.
Now there was at the time a stiff breeze across
the stream from our side. The river was swift
and broad, and the punt was cumbersome and
very high out of the water. Facilis was the
descensus of Avernus. In other words, very soon
did the favouring gale waft the water party to
their haven on the other side, although truly it
was fifty yards lower down. Then the ladies
walked away. I winked at our host again and
this time gave him one in the ribs, and mean-
while across the stream the band was begin-
ning to play. Wait a minute, for I think of
something.

One day a few years ago some of us fishermen
u 2 291

Sporting Recollections

were looking out of a window of a hostel on the
Namsen fjord, when to us entered a bearded
Viking coming down the street in a most fearful
and abnormal state of intoxication. The road
was nothing like broad enough for this warrior.
Aquavit is heady stuff ! Anon he fell prone ;
but after a time arose to a sitting posture and
gazed about him. Then evidently a brilliant
idea struck him, for he — not without difficulty
— got on to all-fours and crawled to an adjacent
wall. Against this he most craftily reared him-
self up, and having got his balance — more or less
— proceeded to roll himself along and against
the wall, and so progressing, disappeared round
the corner.

It was very much in the same manner that
the General went down the limpid Test in that
punt. He manfully pushed her out from the
bank and poled her into the stream, but the
instant she felt this, together with a head wind,
round she came and into the bank again thirty
yards lower down. So it befell again and again
and again, until the poor dear old General finally
gave it up in despair and sat him down on the
same side from which he had started nearly half
a mile higher up. Oh that I could have heard
even a few of the remarks ! He and the punt
were duly retrieved by other and abler arms.
It isn't given to the uninitiated to pole a
292

Of an Old 'Un

clumsy punt across a rapid stream in a gale of
wind.

I should have liked to have heard his candid
opinion of Test fishing that evening. But now
comes the very cream of the cream, the Holy of
Holies of the affair. A few weeks afterwards
appeared in one of the sporting periodicals a
letter from the General, and signed with his pen
name. Well, aye, too well indeed did we all
know it. His article was on the subject of Test
fishing. He went into detail at some length,
and ended up by telling us that his best season
on the Test was eighty brace of trout. And not a
month previously had that old liar assured me
he had never caught a Test trout in his life. I
believed that ! Verily I say unto you : " The
fisher goeth forth in the morning, he returneth
in the evening, the smell of whisky is upon him,
but the truth is not in him." For these words,
O Andrew Lang, much thanks, and may you be
resting in peace after your strenuous life by the
side of gently flowing streams in flowery glades
and fanned by sweetest zephyrs.

Some wise person has remarked that there are
better fish in the sea than ever came out of it.
That is very probably true. If there are better
fish in ,the river Test than have ever reposed on
its banks under the well-satisfied gaze of the
admiring and successful angler, they must indeed

293

Sporting Recollections

be good ones. I know of trout up to a very
heavy weight indeed ; of one over sixteen pounds,
caught with — may we be forgiven ! — a piece of
fat bacon, and another cannibal of eleven pounds,
caught by a cousin of mine with a shrimp, in
the same pool out of which the sixteen-pounder
came. I do not see why there should not be
trout there up to almost any weight within
reason. Many a forty-pound salmon has been
landed from less alluring quarters. Verily, that
same lovely pool below Romsey Bridge is one of
the most exquisite pieces of water, from a fisher-
man's point of view, that I have ever looked
upon. What hours have I spent on the bridge
on sunny mornings, when the chestnuts have
been in full bloom, and all around was k scene
of the most perfect rural peace, watching the
trout sailing about in the eddies beneath me, and
turning aside for a moment now and then to
approach the wheel, ev6r revolving in the little
side stream to prevent their peregrinations into
the town, bent, I fear, on garbage hunting. In
spite of the wheel, do we not know that there
are many finny visitors that haunt the carriers
along the streets of Romney, who force their
way up these suburban waters which have fed
the frequent mills in passing ? Do we not know
how they are on occasions ladled out in the
purlieus of Romsey — aye ! and Winchester too
294

Of an Old Tin

— by hook or by crook, mostly the latter imple-
ment, I fancy, and sold for much to unsuspecting
purchasers.

Enchanting as it is to sit on Romsey Bridge
and drink in all the surrounding loveliness of
scene and sound as one watches the trout below
in the crystal clear pool, I never felt the very
smallest desire to catch any one of them, and it
is not of these fat fellows, big as they un-
doubtedly are, that I would sing. Nay, rather,
but of those that lie in the limpid waters higher
up the valley, where, as we wander along the
banks, we can but faintly catch the sound of the
old abbey bells in the far, far distance.

The biggest, far the biggest, fish ever caught
with a fly in a sporting manner that I know
anything about is that taken comparatively lately
by my friend Major Bartholomew with a sedge
at Kimbridge, the weight, as I am told, being
eight and a half pounds. " South West," that
trustworthy chronicler, says it was a perfect fish.
To catch a fish of that size with a sedge on an
ordinary Test cast is a most wonderful feat. I
know that, as well as skill, which Major Bar-
tholomew posses?es to the fullest extent, he must
also have had luck on his side, and I am quite
certain he will pardon my saying so. In a river
like the Test at Kimbridge one cannot dictate
to a large fish. If he insists on burying himself

295

Sporting Recollections

in a mass of weeds in deep water, the fisher is
done for, fish he never so craftily. If his foe
insists on taking his line round an adjacent
stump — yes ! there are a few stumps in the Test
— through a hatchway, or among the piles of a
bridge, who are we, with our necessarily slender
cast, to say him nay ? There only remains to
wind up the line and to make a few remarks
according to our several temperaments and up-
bringing. But there are occasions when our
sorrow — I speak for myself ! — is almost too deep
for words. I once, how well I remember it !
but no ! I will not, for it was a salmon, and
does not concern us here. But — ah me ! It
was a salmon ! I thought I should ha\{e cried.

I have never caught a really " severe big trout "
in the Test. I have got plenty of just about four
pounds, but very few indeed of over that weight.
Four pounds ten ounces is my biggest. I do
not think there are many trout of five pounds or
over fairly caught with fly. I well remember
Tom Mann — I sigh as I think how many years
ago — getting one of just over 5^ lb. on Mayfly
on the Compton Water. He sent a message
down to us at Kimbridge, where I was fishing
with " Ballygunge," to tell us about it. Just
about the same time Mann had laid out on the
table at the Horsebridge Inn the best day's
catch of Test trout I ever saw for size and
296

Of an Old 'Un

condition. There were eight fish weighing
twenty-five pounds and not one of the lot
was under three pounds. At one time I knew
of quite half a dozen trout on the Compton
Water that weighed six pounds each or over. It
was all very well to know them, to have a casual
acquaintance with them, so to speak, but the
consummation so greatly to be desired was much
more than this. It was to have them " out of
it " by legitimate means and on the hook of a
steelyard. I never accomplished it, alas !

One or two of the Compton monsters, however,
had narrow escapes. One of them I had on, and
apparently well hooked, three times during three
consecutive Mayfly seasons. He beat and broke
me every time. The third occasion I did really
think he was mine, for he was on for several
minutes, and his gymnastics were assuming quite
docile and ladylike proportions when our sad
parting supervened. He lived and had his dwell-
in the depths of Oakley Hole, a very large and
deep hole capable of holding a seine-ful of
salmon, to say nothing of trout. I do not think
this big fellow ever surface-fed except on Mayfly,
and then always in the same place in the neck
of the run in the pool. The first two times I
hooked him he went down into the deep water
and broke me at once. The third time he
rushed up-stream and jumped clean out of the

297

sporting Recollections

water, showing his goodly proportions and per-
fect condition. My heart was in my mouth,
but we weathered that storm, and he sailed away
up-stream and fooled about not too uproariously.
But after a bit he turned round, and came right
away down and into the depths of Oakley Hole.
In those depths he remained, and played about
at his wild will for some time without damage,
and then saw fit to come out again and go away
up-stream close to the other bank. I could not
get to him, as the water was over my head. He
got faster and faster, and, with the stream against
the long line he had out, the end came.

About half a mile lower down the river one
day I became aware of an enormous trout taking
down every Mayfly that came over him. I had
not previously heard of or seen this fish, and
never heard of or saw him again. He was a
veritable giant. He was feeding at the head of
a narrow channel that skirted a bed of weeds in
the middle of the main stream. The wind was
blowing steadily straight down the river. I
managed with the utmost difficulty, without
swimming, for the water was deep, and the bed
of the river full of somewhat treacherous holes,
to attain to a spot from which I could have put
a fly over him neatly and without a drag if only
the wind would have eased off for a very few
seconds. There 1 stood patiently waiting, and
298

Of an Old 'Un

none too warm after a time, for the water was
well above my hips. I waited and waited, but
never for one moment did the wind cease, and
never did that lordly trout fail to absorb every
Mayfly that came over him. It was very trying,
and my patience was not rewarded, for, although
I remained for over two hours planted there in
the middle of the river, the wind never let me
have one moment when I could have put a fly
over him in such a manner that it would have
been acceptable.

I knew of two hoary-headed old fellows who,
when Mayfly had been on for a few days, could
be seen up a certain rush-grown ditch that joined
the main river patrolling about, and round and
round— for all the world like an old farmyard
cat looking for mice in the gloaming— sucking
down every fly they could find. I am sure both
of them were w'ell over six pounds.

There were, indeed, more than a few very
goodly trout in the depths of the main
river appertaining to that most lovely place
Mottisfont Abbey, in the days when that best
of good fellows the late Daniel Meinertzhagen
lived there. He was, indeed, always most kind
to me, and many a trout have I pulled out of the
Mottisfont fishing, and many a pheasant have I
missed in the coverts there when staying under
his most hospitable roof. " Meinertz," as he

299

sporting Recollections

liked to be called by his friends, was one of the
few men I have seen who, having taken to
shooting late in life, approached, proxime accessit,
to quite the front rank of shots. As a dry-fly
fisherman he was nearly as good as the very
best. I remember a most beautiful brace of
absolutely perfect trout of 4I lb. and 4 lb. he
caught one evening opposite the summer-house
on the main stream at Mottisfont.

In under a willow, and in a perfectly in-
accessible place, lay for nearly the whole of one
season, just below the boundary of the Mottisfont
water, and close to the road which runs from
the adjacent station, an enormous trout. I put
him at not an ounce less than eight pounds. 1
had stood and watched him with longing eyes
times without number. So had a great many
other people, and I could not describe them all
as gentlemen and sportsmen. I knew of two
trout at that time of over eight pounds apiece
that had been taken out — with bread which was
their accustomed diet — weighed and put back
again. My old friend at Mottisfont Bridge was
quite as large as either of them. One of them
lived at Wherwell Mill, and was called Jumbo,
and the other in Mr. Silva's kitchen garden (I
do not mean in the cabbage beds themselves, but
in the river which irrigated them), just below
Fullerton station, and were well known to fame.
300

Of an Old 'Un

The old trout under the willow disappeared.
One morn I missed him from his accustomed
place — I hope the writer of the Elegy will, from
his present dread abode, allow the misquotation
to pass — and never saw a sign or heard a word
of him again. Probably his end was ignominious,
and not unconnected with a fishmonger's slab.

I knew of a six- or seven- pounder that lived in
a large, deep pool near the top of the Houghton
Water. I had seen him plainly on a few
occasions, but had never known him take a fly.
Mayfly did not exist in that part of the river.
One day in April .there was — a very rare event
now-a-days — a most abnormal rise of grannom,
and I thought it not improbable that it might
tempt this fish to forsake his usual habits. It
did. I sought his pool, and saw him at once at
the tail of it sucking down the flies by dozens.
He very shortly picked out mine, and was
hooked. He gave one mad rush up-stream, out
of the pool, and beyond it, and the end came.
Half my cast and the artificial grannom, green
egg and all, left me. I expect that old trout
came to the conclusion that taking flies was,
after all, an undesirable method of filling his
stomach. I never saw him again.

I know of another fish of over six pounds not
far off", but he reposes in a glass case in the
dining-room of the old Stockbridge Club in

301

Sporting Recollections

the Grosvenor Hotel, and was caught with a
minnow.

Near the top of the Houghton Water, on
Machine Barn Shallow, I once had a good
round with a trout — not a monster, but a very-
good fish, for he, too, wasjust under four pounds.
I had had him on some time, and was thinking
it was about time to get the net ready, when he
went right across to the other side of the
shallow, thirty yards away, and buried himself
in a great lump of dead weeds that had collected,
and there remained immovable. I could do
nothing at all with him, and for all I could feel
he might have been a dead whale. I thought I
would have just one last try before breaking the
line, so I solemnly waded across to the other
bank — it was nowhere more than four feet deep
— put down the rod, took the line in my hand,
and cannily felt my way along it, into and
through the weeds, until I touched the fish.
He was perfectly still, and seemed to think my
touching him was some legitimate part of the
entertainment. By decrees I worked the net
through the weeds, which were very thick, till
I had got it under him, and then with my
fingers I fairly jockeyed him into it, and hauled
him out, together with about half a stone weight
of dripping weeds.

Round about the regions of Wherwell and
302

Of an Old 'Un

Chilbolton there used to be some monsters of
trout. I have had a very few of them on the
end of my line, but never a one on the bank.
I remember stalking a very large fish on
Chilbolton Common that I could hear sucking
down Mayflies on the edge of some reeds. I
crawled in the shallow water through the reeds
inch by inch, until I was within very few feet
of him, and could see him plainly. He was,
indeed, a big one, and his tail, which came out
of the water as he took each fly, looked like the
fiat of a spade. I made a retreat, and with
infinite trouble got through the reeds again,
some yards below him, and even then could only
see the outside edge of the rings he made in
rising, and I had to throw round the corner of
some reeds and chance it. I sent my fly forth
on its errand, and thought it had fallen accur-
ately. It had. I heard a suck, struck, and was
into him. He simply bolted off up-stream like
a steam-engine, and when he had run most of
my line off the reel took his departure to
Whitchurch, or anywhere else up the river, for
all I knew or cared. I should like to have had
that fellow on a double-hooked Jock Scott at
the end of a grilse cast, in which case the
result might have been different. As it was, I
might just as well have tried to hold Leviathan
himself.

303

sporting Recollections

I once, near the same place, met my friend, the
late Canon Awdry, who thus addressed me : " If
you care to risk being drowned I can put you on
to three good fish that I don't believe have ever
had an artificial fiy over them since they were
hatched. Come along." He took me off to a
bend in the river, where it was very broad.
Half-way across was a patch of rushes. Close
in, under the opposite bank, were three fish,
some half-dozen yards apart, taking down duns
with the regularity of clockwork as they floated
along. Now, if only I could attain to that
patch of rushes I could put a fly to all those
three fish neatly and easily, for the wind was
perfect, and there was scarcely a breath of it.
But between us and that rush patch the water
looked deep, and the mud in that part of the
Test was not to be despised. I may add that
the opposite bank under which those three fish
were enjoying such an excellent repast was
adorned all along with may-bushes in full
bloom, and it was absolutely certain that no
artificial fly could by any possibility have been
presented to them from that side. If I was
unsuccessful in getting a fly to them from the
rush patch, it should not be from want of trying.
I never used waders in those days for any
fishing, and by the same token was never one
halfpenny the worse, not even when salmon-
304

Of an Old 'Un

fishing in February. So I simply took off
everything above my trousers, and in I went.
I reached the patch of rushes all right, but there
was not much to spare, for the mud was up to
my knees, and the water was nearly into my
mouth. But I could quite nicely put a fly to
those three fish — fish do I say ? I mean lambs,
lambs with fleece — like Mary's — as white as
snow, as far as sucking in an artificial olive dun
went, but black as the devil himself was ever
painted in their subsequent behaviour. I put
my dun to trout No. i, the lowest. He took it
like the aforesaid lamb, and bolted off down
stream in precisely the same way that his name-
sake, of chasing fame, used occasionally to bolt
about the year 1870, and broke me. No. 2,
ditto ditto. No. 3, exactly the same. Thank
you ! I had had three muddy, watery journeys
between the shore and the patch of rushes, had
lost three flies, and a certain amount of cast, and
was " a demd, damp, moist, unpleasant body."

305

CHAPTER X

The Oykel — Most peculiar river I ever fished — Paved with
salmon and grilse, but they won't take — Fish at the falls
when river was in spate, in other days caught with landing-
nets only and taken away in cartloads — A slice of luck in
the Holyhead express — Fishing in South Africa— Hand-
lines, rods, and other methods — Also a little dynamite —
The Knysna — Netting at night in the Lora mouth — A
very narrow shave from drowning — Keeping up the dignity
of Government once again — Shooting an ibis from bed !
— Well ! very nearly.

In all my experience of salmon-fishing I don't
think I ever knew a river with such remarkable
peculiarities as the Oykel in Sutherlandshire. I
fished it with S — M every day during May,
June and July in the year 1902. Our water
was from the Falls to the tideway at Inver-
oykel, and a most charming piece of fishing it
was. Some of the pools looked quite perfect,
but, alas ! they turned out otherwise so far as
the catching of salmon was concerned. I have
never in the whole of my somewhat long angling
career seen a river packed with grilse and salmon,
but chiefly grilse, in that July, as was the Oykel.
In many places the bed of the river was paved
with fish. But they were non-takers. Not one
in a thousand paid any more attention to one's
306

sporting Recollections

fly than did the stones behind which they were
lying. I have gone out in the morning and
fished from the Falls to the Einig very many
times without getting a single rise, well knowmg
that my fly was passing over grilse in hundreds
and over salmon in dozens.

The last day of our term the river was in
perfect order and the weather all that could be
desired, and the fish were there in thousands.
We met between us only one salmon and one
grilse. That was all, and our flies must have
been over fish without number. A little way
below the Falls was a rock overhanging the
river some twenty to thirty feet high. If in
the morning when the sun was out, at about
nine o'clock, you_ crawled to the edge of this
rock and cannily looked over when the river was
full of fish, you would see the most wonderful
collection of grilse with a few salmon among
them that I have ever beheld in my life. Not
even in Norway during the many seasons that I
have fished there have I seen anything like it.
I have often lain on that rock and watched
S — M's silver doctor or Jock Scott traverse that
pool from side to side and from top to bottom.
The fish never moved a fin, never even wagged
their tails, didn't even go away, simply lay there
jostling each other. Then came a big spate,
and I sat at the side of the Falls watching the

X 2 307

sporting Recollections

fish fighting their way up in thousands. It was
a most entrancing spectacle, but disappointing
withal, for one could but think and regret that
such exceedingly meagre toll had been taken
from the vast multitudes of fishes that were
eluding us for ever.

Old John, our ghillie, who had spent his life
in Strathoykel, assured us that in olden days,
when the laws as to the taking of salmon were far
less drastic than at present, a couple of men at
the Falls with landing-nets when a spate came
on used to catch salmon in cartloads. I believe it
to the uttermost, and if he had said wagon-loads
instead of cartloads I should not cast the slightest
doubt on his statement.

As we all know well, there is a tremendous
lot of luck attached to salmon-fishing. How is
this for a full-sized slice 1 I had been fishing
the Kilbarry water on that most glorious river
the Blackwater, with my old friend poor George
Pyne, for many weeks. We were wending our
way to England via Holyhead. Somehow or
other I had managed to get no dinner, and when
I got on board our boat at Kingstown I was
about half starved. There was nothing to eat
but a most excellent ham. I ate about half of
it. Soon after we left Holyhead I felt very
thirsty. When we rattled through Crewe I
could scarcely speak, and as the lights of Rugby
308

Of an Old 'Un

flashed by I thought I was not far from death.
My throat was like the proverbial deserted parrot
cage, and I could only just manage a husky
whisper to my mate that I really thought I
should die of thirst before ever we reached
Euston.

" Oh, are you thirsty, sir ? " asked a very
friendly voice in angelic accents from the other
end of the compartment. " I've got a bottle of
' the boy ' in my bag and a glass, up in the rack
there. You are more than welcome."

Do you imagine I blessed that good man ?
Man do I call him .? nay, rather an angel of
light ! He opened his bag, he unwired the
bottle, and handed it over. My endless blessings
fall upon his head, and if in the course of nature
he is now in a better world, may a phalanx of
houris be supplying his every want, and the
Royal Artillery string band be soothing his
slumbers.

A change of scene is refreshing. Fly with
me, then, across the waves to the shores of the
Indian Ocean west of the Cape of Good Hope,
where I have had much fishing of very varied
descriptions ; where I have stood on a rock high
above the waves, and after whirling my big bait
attached to a stone round and round my head,
have sent it forth into the deep to catch — well !
just so, perchance an eight-foot shark, a fifty-

309

sporting Recollections

pound red steenbrass, kabeljauw, or poeskop, or
whatever a kind providence might send ; where
in the estuaries, with a bamboo and more slender
appliances, I have caught in the tideway much
more acceptable and palatable fish. Hauling
out monsters on cart-ropes never had much
more attraction for me than catching enormous
sharks at Pernambuco from the stern of an
ocean-going steamer, with a hawser for line and
Lord knows how many pounds of pork for a
bait.

About 350 miles east of Capetown is a lovely
little sleepy hollow of a place called Knysna.
The village lies at the head of a five-mile-long
lagoon which enters the sea between two magni-
ficent headlands : on one side a towering perpen-
dicular rock many hundred feet high, and on
the other a very steep heather-clad precipice.
In and around that most exquisite lagoon I have
shot and fished days and nights without end :
the fishing chiefly with an enormous seine
which required some twenty of us to manoeuvre.
The hauls were stupendous on occasions v/hen
we happened to get a great many fish cornered
in a bay. The variety of fish we took was
wonderful, but, as I can only recall the Dutch
names of them, a list would be uninteresting. I
remember, however, that two sorts of mullet
and two at least of sea-bream predominated.
310

Of an Old 'Un

Every fish we caught was thankfully accepted
by adjacent inhabitants.

We once, and only once, I am thankful to
say, enclosed an eight- or nine-foot shark. As
we neared land his rushes at the net were
fearful. I thought it must give way, but it
held manfully, and of course gave to the brute's
attacks. As we got into knee-deep water we
took uncommonly good care to keep the calves
of our legs a long way from the net, for he
would have had a bite out of a man's leg if he'd
got the chance as easily as a reaping-machine
takes off a hare's. We eventually got the devil
into quite shallow water, and with the aid of
a lump or two of driftwood hammered his life
out.

There was a certain point in the Knysna
lagoon where the water was very deep, and here
big fish used to congregate, and occasionally we
made a party to spend the night and picnic for
fishing. We made an enormous fire of drift-
wood, and had coffee and sandwiches going all
night, and when so inclined went to sleep on
the sand. One night I was awakened by one
George Rex shouting for help in an exceedingly
vigorous manner. I ought to observe that we
all went to sleep with our lines fixed round our
wrists. I was wide awake in a moment, and
saw George leaning back and pulling like blazes

311

Sporting Recollections

at his line, but nevertheless being slowly towed
towards the water. I rushed at him, seized him
round the waist and leant back with all my
might. That was too much for the brute, for
of course we knew it must be a shark. We had
a tremendous game of pulley-hauley, but at
length tired him out and towed him ashore.
He was a whopper, between eight and nine feet
long.

I remember yet one more adventure with a
shark, remarkable not only from a natural his-
tory point of view, but also from the peculiar
antics the beast played when hooked. It wasn't
a big one, not more than six feet long. Far
away east up the coast in the wilds of Kafirland
is a certain little rocky island, of about half an
acre, which one can get to at very low spring-
tides. On the outside the water is very deep.
When we lived in Kafirland we used occasion-
ally to spend a day and night on that island. It
was glorious ! And the number and variety of
the fish we caught was scarcely " creditable " (as
I once heard a gamekeeper remark). I was
seated on a rock by the side of one of my sons,
who was fishing with a long line and a big bait.
He got a bite. He struck. A strike under
such circumstances is a somewhat different affair
from the twitch you give with your wrist when
you see a trout suck in your little dun, and is
812

Of an Old 'Un

made by a pull that calls into use every muscle
in your body. The next thing we knew was
that a shark sprang right out of the water at
our feet, and was kicking about on the rock
we stood on. We were on top of him like
lightning and had him killed in a moment.
Before casting him back into the deep we pro-
ceeded to remove his liver to get the oil. We
then ascertained that he — or should I not under
the circumstances say she ? — over and above the
liver and sundry other appurtenances contained
eleven little sharklets. These we placed in an
adjacent little rocky pool where they swam
about and appeared quite happy. And now I
hope no one is going to be rude enough to say
anything about Baron Miinchhausen !

When our African home some thirty years
ago was in the Transkei, we had, by way of
a seaside residence, a row of some half-dozen
Kafir huts made of wattle and daub, which were
fairly weather-proof. In these we used to reside
for a month or so at a time, when official affairs
were not too pressing, and an intensely happy
time was invariably the result. A more abso-
lutely free and unfettered life could not be
imagined. Indeed, when my two sons and
I were there, with merely a native policeman
or two to cook for us, it not infrequently hap-
pened that, with the exception of tennis-shoes,

313

Sporting Recollections

we did not put on a stitch of clothing from
morning till night, and became almost as black
as the surrounding Kafirs. Whether the fat
old Dutch fool, who was Secretary for Native
Affairs at the time, and thought himself the
deuce and all of a swell, would have considered
that this manner of life was " keeping up the
dignity of the Government," this present his-
torian knows not nor indeed cares. Our row
of huts was situated on a little flat at the bottom
of a kloof close to the seashore. The forest
came down to our very doorways, for we had
no doors or windows to our huts, and it was
quite charming to see the perfectly natural way
in which our good and trustworthy policemen
used to walk in and out at sunrise with our
coffee while my wife and I lay peacefully in
bed, neither they nor we being so silly as to
give one thought to the matter.

Oh, but it was a glorious life and did one
good. The unfettered freedom of those sons of
Ham, with my wife and me at any rate, was
perfectly delightful. One of our policemen
came to me one day and said that one of his
wives — his latest and best — was very sick.
Would I of my mercy come and see if I could
do anything for her ? Of course I went with
him, and on entering her hut there lay the girl
on a blanket, as naked as the day she was born.
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Of an Old 'Un

My Lord ! I scarcely knew which way to look.
Anyhow I found out what was the matter and
cured her. I verily believe whenever I met that
girl afterwards I went very near to a blush.
Not she, indeed, but she always had a radiant
smile for me. The poor folk came to me times
without end for help in their obstetric cases ;
but under the circumstances this I felt compelled
to refuse.

Within very few feet of our bedroom hut a
little rill tinkled by among the rocks, and at
night as we lay in bed the sounds of the forest
that came to us were endless. The animal life
of that wooded kloof was wonderful — bush-bucks
we could hear barking every night, cats,
ichneumons, porcupines, monkeys, otters and
many other strange beasties. Most of their
cries I knew, but there was one animal that beat
me, for I heard him every night over and over
again — I could never get to see him. By day in
the bush and on the edge of it were endless
" strange bright birds on their starry wings " :
touracos, hornbills ; three sorts of cuckoos, with
most brilliant golden and green plumage ; the
golden oriole, with his exquisite liquid whistle ;
and brilliant sun-birds on every aloe. Flowers
without end after rain — gladioli and watsonia of
almost every hue, bright sky-blue convolvuli in
masses ; and on the seashore, almost to high-

315

sporting Recollections

tide mark, mesembryanthemums of varied hues
flowering in the utmost profusion.

But the trail of the serpent was over it all,
for there were lots of snakes, which frequently
visited us in our huts. If they were innocuous
they were allowed to depart in peace, but if
otherwise their heads got bruised according to
prophecy, which was as it should be. There
were lots of Berg adders {Clotho atropos) whose
bite spells death when away from instant help.
We killed numbers of those beasts both by day
and night. It is quite wonderful, however, how
soon one gets to ignore snakes altogether, and
even forgets that they exist. One day, while we
were all sitting at breakfast, a big beast of a
snake, quite seven feet long, sailed calmly into
the hut as though it belonged to him. As he
possessed no poison apparatus he was allowed to
go out again and on his way.

About a mile away from our little encamp-
ment both east and west two moderate-sized
rivers made their way into the sea. That on
the west was named the Qora, that on the east
the Jujura. To those unacquainted with the
Kafir tongue and its peculiarities, the attempt to
pronounce these names correctly would probably
produce dental fracture. The mouths of both
these rivers were our happy fishing-grounds, as
will appear. We swam, battling with the surf,
316

Of an Old 'Un

we fished, we netted, we gathered oysters and
were happy from daylight to dark, naked and
unashamed.

At the Qora mouth was the most magnificent
oyster-bed I ever saw or read of. It was
exposed at low tide, and one had nothing to do
but send a man along with a sack and a pickaxe
to procure a daily supply. They were incom-
parably the best oysters I ever ate, and were,
moreover, fully four times as big as the largest
natives. Never make two bites of a cherry !
There were many of those Qora oysters that
" Muckle Mou'd Meg " herself could never have
negotiated in less. Many and many a score of
those excellent oysters have I eaten fresh from
the native bed by just stooping and prising them
open, for we had the necessary implements
concealed close by.

One morning soon after daybreak I was
awakened suddenly as I lay in bed in our hut by
the cry of a " Hadadah " {Ibis hagedash) a large
and shy bird, close by. I was out of bed in an
instant, seized a gun, and in less than ten seconds
the bird was dead. They are excellent eating.
Then from an adjacent hut appeared one of my
sons, gun in hand, with his trousers on (his
mother and her English maid were with us at
the time) : " Dear old man," I called to him, " in
this -wicked world never wait to pull your

317

sporting Recollections

breeches on. If you do you'll usually find your-
self second."

The tide ran up the Qora for a couple of
miles and formed a miniature lagoon in which
were innumerable fish. I had a good seine a
hundred yards long which could be worked by
four men, but we usually had six or eight, for I
always had a few native police with me. It
was a perfectly lovely spot. The very densest
forest came right down to the water's edge on
both sides of the lagoon from which echoed
wild cries of birds and beasts, and in the sun-
shine there were dashing about among the
foliage the most lovely butterflies, while the
everlasting roar of the ocean close by never
ceased from soothing our ears. That same dear
ocean, combined with our netting therein, very
nearly put an abrupt termination to my career
one fine morning, but of that a little later.

When we started our netting operations we
very soon ascertained that netting in daylight, or
even by moonlight, in the Qora lagoon was
useless, for the fish always evaded the net or
jumped over it. It was a beautiful but most
unsatisfactory sight to see the mullet of from
half a pound up to five pounds weight flashing
over the net in the bright moonlight in shoals,
and leaving not a solitary fish behind entangled
in its meshes,
318

Of an Old 'Un

Towards the lower end of the lagoon was a
bay, and at the shelving edge of this we finished
our haul. Of course we got to know the depth
of the water and the channels most accurately,
and generally carried out our plans without a
hitch. Picture to yourself in the darkness the
little procession of six or eight men sallying
forth, four of them carrying the seine on its
poles. When we reach the river, so dark is it
we can only just distinguish the tops of the
forest trees against the sky. What innumerable
sounds of the night greet our ears — the hooting
of owls the cry of the nightjar and calls of
animals without end, and weird noises in the
air made by big flying insects, noises that so
loud and far-carrying are they that were we to
show you the wee beastie that makes it you
would laugh us to scorn. It is, indeed, a weird,
entrancing scene to us who are used to it, and
who know the depth of the water at every step.
But I have noticed that the new chum, just
fresh from home, doesn't seem to enjoy it quite
so thoroughly, more particularly w^hen he puts
his foot on a torpedo fish or electric ray.

Then we strip and wade along up the river
near the opposite bank, the water being up to
our hips, for a quarter of a mile or so. Then
two or three of us swim over to the near bank,
with one end of the net, into shallow water

319

sporting Recollections

again, leaving a deeper channel between us
across which the seine stretches. Then slowly
we drag right down the water to where we
started from, and out on to the sand where we
empty the bag of the net. A good haul will
give us two or three hundredweight of fish, or
even a little more at times. The best of these
are mullet of two kinds, called " springers " and
" harders." I have little doubt they are really
Mugil chelo and Mugil capita. Then there were
always sea-bream of two or three kinds, and very
occasionally two or three very dark-coloured fish
called " gallune," of three or four pounds weight,
which were most excellent eating. Sometimes
we found a beastly great poescop, weighing half
a hundredweight or more, in the net — to our
disgust — for they are perfectly useless for any
purpose except, perchance, agriculture. Electric
rays were, like the poor, always with us, and
when one of us touched one by mistake, or
trod on one, much jeering ensued, for they gave
a very strong shock, and a big fish would bring
one down. I think this beast of a fish was
torpedo nobiliana. I could, however, see nothing
at all noble about it. There was another ray,
called by the Dutch Zandkruiper, which was,
without doubt, a skate. These came up the
river in shoals, and we had great fun chasing
and spearing them with assegais. On one occa-
320

Of an Old 'Un

sion we surrounded a shoal with the seine, and
were totally unable to get the net to shore.
There must have been many tons weight in
the net, and as we didn't want the fish, nor
indeed to' break the net, we let them all out.
At the very mouth of the Qora river, where
it joined the surf, was a little somewhat deep
bay, which I fancied would be pretty full of
fish. I thought one morning I could manoeuvre
one end of the seine between this bay and the
river, and that then all together we could drag
through the bay and out on to the shore.
Thank God ! I tried alone, for the very swiftly
flowing river caught me and carried me out into
the surf. The surf on that coast is no joke, and
I had a terrible time of it, diving under the
waves and fighting their combers. But, after
a time, I got away from the stream and fought
my way towards shore, which I reached more
dead than alive. It was a somewhat peculiar
sensation, when I was battling against that raging
surf, to see my wife sitting on the hillside sketch-
ing, and my boys on the shore watching for my
head among the breakers, and to know that the
betting was ten to one against my ever get-
ting back to them. However, as old Anthony
Trollopc said in "The Last Chronicle of Barset,
" It's dogged as does it." I believe it was
" dogged as did it " that journey. I. have had
Y ' 321

Sporting Recollections

several shaves of being drowned in my life, but
that round with the surf at Qora river mouth
was assuredly the closest call of all.

There was yet one other method of fishing
that we utilized at the mouth of the other river
called Jujura. That method was with dynamite,
and I am yet once again unashamed. The fun
of it was simply gorgeous. Listen ! and 1 think
you will agree with me. At a bend in this
river, about a quarter of a mile from the sea-
shore, was a pool about twenty-five feet deep.
My two sons and I were the performers, for we
never had any one else with us sufficiently at
home in the water to take a hand in the game.
Being stripped and ready for the fray, we lit a
fuse attached to a good big blasting charge of
dynamite, and chucked it into the depths of
that pool. As soon as ever we heard the ex-
plosion, in we dived ; and the fun that ensued
in the next five minutes was, in a small way,
as good as I have ever had in my life — rat-
catching isn't a patch on it. Of course, a good
many fish were killed outright ; they lay prone
on the bottom, and were easily retrieved at our
leisure ; but quite a score or two were half
stunned and could swim, but their mode of
progression was without form and void. The
chasing, grasping, and holding these half-silly
fish, and taking them to the surface was, I
322

Of an Old 'Un

think, while it lasted, quite as good fun as I
have ever had of a piscatorial nature. I should
dearly like to have it all over again ; but, alas !
of this one fact I am exceedingly well assured :
and that is, that with the present measure of
my waistcoat, and consequent buoyancy of my
frame in five-and-twenty feet of water, nothing
less than half a hundredweight of lead would
ever get me to the bottom.

323

CHAPTER XI

Hawking — Ananias and Sapphira as falconers and churchgoers;
also they sing hymns unmelodiously, very — Chasing a wood-
cock with a peregrine— Partridge-hawking — Rook-hawking
■ — Rabbit-hawking with a goshawk — Marvellous art in the
training of hawks — Good-bye !

There was a time in my career as a sportsman
when a great deal of hawking was interpolated
amongst the shooting. Usually at a place in one
of the eastern counties, where a large party of
us were in the habit of staying on a very good
and rather big partridge shoot that was never
more than half shot over, at least two days a
week, were devoted to hawking. This plan was
carried on, season after season. On the days
that hawking was the order of the day, there
was no shooting at all for any one. If they
didn't care to go out hawking, the sportsmen
could stop at home and bite their finger-nails,
read third-class magazines, or even play patience.
Now usually among our party there were two
who honestly liked hawking — our host and one
other. There were two more who said they liked
it ; but their names, although they were both
men, spelt Ananias and Sapphira. These two also,
as I noticed on Sundays, said they liked going
324

Sporting Recollections

to church, but their looks bewrayed them. I
never saw two men look so frightfully bored in
my life as they did during the performance, or
so joyous when it was all over. Also, they both
sang the hymns full blast, and at the same time
most terribly out of tune. The rest of us hated
hawking like poison, especially as it took us
away from the most excellent partridge-driving.
I don't think we ever attempted to conceal
our dislike. To us it was waste of time that
might have been more profitably spent in the
pursuit of partridges, only with guns and drivers
instead of falconers, peregrines and a cadge.
Yes, I do believe I am aware what a cadge is,
but I don't think I know much beyond that.

Now, peace, you Geordie Lodge ! you Gerald
Lascelles ! and you others ! I am not goin* to
worry you with any lengthy dissertation on
hawking. I couldn't if I tried, for I know
absolutely nothing about it. But I wish to say
a few words on the subject as it appears to an
ordinary — a very ordinary — sportsman who was
not brought up to the art, for art it undoubtedly
is, and very high art, too.

In all probability the partridge-hawking I
have witnessed, and I have been out some scores
of times, has been of an inferior description. I
imagine the country was not nearly as open as it
should have been. But I will grant at once that

325

Sporting Recollections

the successful flight of a falcon or tiercel (is that
right ?) when he or she flashes out of the far
blue vault of heaven like lightning and strikes
the quarry, is a sight for the gods, and is per-
fectly glorious. But as to the endless abortive
waiting about, "the restless unsatisfied longing,"
that I have suffered day after day and then
plodded my weary way homewards with nothing
accomplished, has gone far to make me hate the
very sight of a cadge.

I have derived, I think, more pleasure from
rook-hawking in Cambridgeshire than from any
other kind of hawking. Alas ! I had not a
horse, and therefore missed the very best of the
chase, which fell to the lot of the falconer alone
who had. But have been greatly amused by
the antics of an old buck rook in a hedge in
evading the talons of his foe, and by the efforts
of the peregrine to circumvent his quarry.

One of the most interesting chases (I don't
doubt there is some professional expression for
that : sorry I don't know it, so we'll let it go at
" chase ") I ever saw was at a woodcock. I am
delighted to say the " cock " won by many
lengths. We were partridge-hawking, and hap-
pened to see a woodcock alight in a hedge in
the distance. We walked up to the place, put
him up, and the tiercel was instantly unhooded

and let go. The cock was off like a Well !

326

AN' KXCELI.ENT I'ALCONER, A FINE SHOT, AND
THE REST DRV-FI,V MAN OK HIS DAV, ON THE TEST

Of an Old 'Un

like a woodcock ; and I know of no faster-flying
bird when he means going. He made for a little
wood about a mile away. Peregrines can fly a
bit too, can't they ? Our tiercel did his best, but
he never even turned the cock, who reached his
haven in safety fully thirty yards ahead. It was
a most beautiful sight, and about the prettiest
bit of hawking that I ever saw.

I don't admire goshawking for rabbits at all.
That must be my own fault entirely, for I know
many better men and many better sportsmen
than myself who go into raptures over it. The
wretched bunny appears to me to have next to
no chance at all, and then, when the poor little
brute is squealing in the goshawk's talons, along
comes the falconer with his open knife, and over
the subsequent rites that ensue we had better
draw a veil. I must allow that to the goshawk
they appeared to be delightful : to me they
were distinctly beastly.

To one who has seen peregrines flashing out
high over the waves from many a towering cliff
of the Hebrides, from the Culver, or the chalky
heights near the Needles, it is almost impossible to
believe that the hooded, jessed, and belled beauty
that sits so peacefully on the falconer's wrist, and
will soar away into the sky to " wait on " at his
bidding, and return again to the lure when sum-
moned, can be the same bird. There are in

327

Sporting Recollections

falconry many very wonderful things, but to my
mind by far the most marvellous of all is the
training of the birds. The amount of know-
ledge, patience, and acumen required by a man
who is to become a successful falconer appears to
me to be next door to miraculous. The pere-
grine, as we all know, is one of the wildest of all
birds, and yet the skilful trainer will take a
mature bird, caught when fully grown in the
course of migration, and called, I believe, " a
passage hawk," and by his infinite skill and
unwearied patience will change the, by nature,
most exceptionally wild fellow into a tame, well-
behaved, and obedient servant. To me the
many records, and they are legion, of the train-
ing of hawks during centuries in many lands are,
indeed, most fascinating literature.

But it is time these records ceased. In bid-
ding my kindly readers farewell once more, I
can only trust that my outpourings have not
bored them beyond endurance, and that in
some, at least, of the opinions I have ventured
to express on sporting matters they will feel
inclined to agree with me.

Richard CUjt &• Sons, Limited, LoneUm and Bungay.

Mr. EVELEIGH NASH'S
LIST OF NEW BOOKS

^'MY PAST"

MR. EVELEIGH NASH has ac-
quired the world-rights of a sefisatio?iai
autobiograpliy written by a relati've of
one of the reigjiing monarchs of Europe.
The memoirsy which are now in active
preparatiojt^ will be published U7ider the
above title duri?ig the London season^ but^
owing to the terms of his agreement with
the perso7iage in question^ Mr. Nash is
U7iable to giDe particulars at present.
The ide?itity of the author a?id full details
regarding the book will be announced in
April.

MR. EVE LEIGH N A SITS NEW BOOKS

ADVENTURES BEYOND THE

ZAMBESI

Of the O'Flaherty, the Insular Miss, the Soldier-
Man, and the Rebel Woman.

By MRS. FRED MATURIN
(Edith Cecil-Porch)

With Illustrations Price los. 6d. net.

Four widely diverse, yet up-to-date people agreed
to seek together the risks, excitements, discomforts
and delights of sport, adventure and companionship
beyond the Zambesi. One of these was Mrs. Fred
Maturin (Mrs. Cecil-Porch) whose previous book
" Petticoat Pilgrims on Trek " showed that she
possesses a rare power of vivid and amusing narrative.
Wanderers and stay-at-homes will revel in her lively
description of the six months' trip of this delightful
quartette in quest of big game and sport in the
African wilds. Her buoyant optimism and her rich
sense of humour found full play in the many ad-
ventures that befel them, and it is just this humorous,
friendly and intrepid outlook of hers that lends
such charm to her written record. The book is
illustrated with some remarkably good photographs.

MR. EVE LEIGH NASH'S NEW BOOKS

SPORTING RECOLLECTIONS OF

AN OLD 'UN

By FRANK N. STREATFEILD, C.M.G.

{Author of '''' Reminiscences of an Old 'f/«.")
Illustrated Price "js. 6d. net.

A book after the heart of all good sportsmen,
brimming over with cheerfulness and good fellow-
ship. The author, who has been a universally
popular figure in sporting circles for over a quarter
of a century, relates many amusing anecdotes on
shooting of every description, fishing, falconry and
cricket, and has packed his book with incidents of
interest to all who use the rod and gun.

THE ROMANCE OF THE
ROTHSCHILDS

By IGNATIUS BALLA

Illustrated Price js. 6d. net.

A full and picturesque narrative of the rise of the
House of Rothschild. The characteristics and early
vicissitudes of the famous Five Frankfurters who
laid the foundations of the House are shown, and
many amusing anecdotes are related of them in
Mr. Balla's book.

Some Early Press Opinions

" The author takes us, in a sense, behind the
scenes, gives us a hundred details of the Rothschilds'

methods, and shows us, step by step, how the ac-
cumulation of these enormous sums was made
possible."— TA^ Globe.

" Extremely interesting."— Z^^^/y f^^^P'J"- ,
" Interesting all the way through. —Standard.
" Abounds in interesting quotations and anecdotes.
— Liverpool Daily Post.

THE MARRIED LIFE OF
QUEEN VICTORIA

By CLARE JERROLD

Author o/" The Early Court of Queen Victoria;' etc.
Illustrated. P"^^ ^5^- ^^^•

In this volume Mrs. Jerrold carries a stage further
her interesting study of Queen Victoria s life, bhc
endeavours to tell the real truth regarding the
Queen's married life and her relations with the
Prince Consort, and in doing so relies on their own
recorded actions and words rather than upon the
highly coloured and in many cases exaggerated
pictures presented by the " lives " of Prince Albert
which were authorised by the Queen.

The result is a human and fascinating story, i he
relations of the Queen and Prince with those around
them with their children and with their ministers
—especially their hatred and fear of Palmerston—
their love for Louis-Philippe, for the German con-
federation, and their complacency towards Russia
arc all dealt with and throw a strong new light upon
the English Court during the years in which Prince
Albert was virtually King.

MR. EVELEIGH N AS ITS NEW BOOKS

THE SAILOR WHOM ENGLAND
FEARED

Being the Story of Paul Jones, Scotch Naval Ad-
venturer and Admiral in the American and Russian
Fleets.

By M. MACDERMOT CRAWFORD.

Author of" The Wife of Lafayette."

Illustrated. Price 15^. net.

John Paul Jones was unquestionably one of the
most striking characters of the eighteenth century.
Born in 1747, the son of a gardener in Kirkcudbright-
shire, he was, at the age of seventeen, third mate on
a slaver, at twenty a merchant captain ; at twenty-
eight lieutenant in the United States Revolutionary
Navy ; at twenty-nine a captain ; at thirty-two
commodore, " the ocean hero of the Old World and
the New," spoiled, adulated, petted by great and
small. A vice-admiral in the Russian Navy at
forty-three — at forty-five he was dead !

A traitor who terrorised his countrymen, known
alternately as " rebel," " corsair," and " pirate,"
Paul Jones was none the less a man of rare distinction
and ability — a brilliant seaman endowed with courage
and determination ; and the record of his deeds is a
story of unflagging interest.

MR. EVE LEIGH NASH'S NEW BOOKS

A CANDID HISTORY OF THE
JESUITS

By JOSEPH McCABE.

Author of " The Decay of the Church of Rome^''
" Twelve Tears in a Monastery^'' l3c.

Price lOJ. 6d. net.

It is curious, in view of the endless discussion of
the Jesuits, that no English writer has ever attempted
a systematic history of that body. Probably no
religious body ever had so romantic a history as
the Jesuits, or inspired such deadly hatred. On the
other hand, histories of the famous society are
almost always too prejudiced, either for or against,
to be reliable. Mr. McCabe, whose striking book
" The Decay of the Church of Rome " attracted
such widespread and well-merited attention, has
attempted, in his new book, to give the facts im-
partially, and to enable the inquirer to form an in-
telligent idea of the history and character of the
Jesuits from their foundation by Loyola to the
present day. Every phase of their remarkable
story — including the activity of political Jesuits
and their singular behaviour on the foreign missions
— is carefully studied, and the record of the Jesuits
in England is very fully examined.

MR. EVELEIGH NASH'S NEW BOOKS

A KEEPER OF ROYAL SECRETS

Being the Private and Political Life of Madame de
Genlis.

By JEAN HARMAND

Illustrated. Price 15/. net.

The career of Madame de Genlis is one of the
baffling enigmas of history. For the greater part of
her life she played an important role in the social
and political life of France.

By virtue of her intimate association with Philip
Egalite, Due d'Orleans, and her high position as the
Governor of Louis Philippe and the other Orleans
children, the influence she wielded practically
amounted to royal power.

She cast her spell over a wide circle, winning
admiration even from her enemies, and yet her Life
has been the subject of a storm of scandalous reports
and speculations.

What was her exact relationship to the Duke ?
was she the mother of the famous " Pamela " whom
Lord Edward Fitzgerald married ? what was her
share in the astounding affair of " Maria Stella " ?
what part did she play in the Revolution ? — these
are some of the mysteries surrounding her on which
M. Harmand, with the help of many unpublished
letters and documents, throws much new light.

The whole truth will probably never be known,
but M. Harmand in his elaborate biography gives
us an immensely fascinating and vivid story, and
unearths many new details regarding her curious
and romantic life.

MR. EVE LEIGH NASH'S NEW BOOKS

THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMEN

By C. GASQUOINE HARTLEY
(Mrs. Walter M. Gallichan)

Price 6s.

This book is the outcome of twelve years' careful
study of the conditions of women in this country
and abroad. Believing that the time has now ar-
rived when women must speak out, fearlessly, the
truth about their own sex, the author has endea-
voured to review the situation as it appears to her
after her lengthy study of the subject. Her book
is divided into three parts — the biological considera-
tion of the question — the historical consideration,
and the present day aspects of the woman problem.
It is a book of much plain speaking and closely
reasoned argument and, whether or not one agrees
with its conclusions and directness, it is a work
which undoubtedly merits the attention of every
responsible person, male and female.

MR. EVE LEIGH NASH'S NEW BOOKS
BY-PATHS IN COLLECTING

By VIRGINIA ROBIE.

Profusely illustrated. Price js. 6d. net.

Every enthusiast over rare and unique things
which have passed the century-old mark will want
this delightful book by Virginia Robie. It contains
a wealth of sound advice upon the quest of the quaint,
and much reliable information is given upon the
collecting of such things as china, furniture, pewter,
copper, brass, samplers, and sundials.

PRINTS AND THEIR MAKERS

Essays on Engravers and Etchers Old and Modern

Edited by FITZROY CARRINGTON

With 200 Illustrations. Price los. 6d. net.

A volume exquisite in every detail of the planning
and making. The chapters — contributed by notable
authorities — discuss various phases of etching and
engraving from the time of Raphael and Durer to
the close of the nineteenth century. The plates
for the illustrations (200) have all been made with
unusual care from original engravings and etchings,
and together form a valuable collection.

MR. EVE LEIGH NASH'S NEW BOOKS

Ne<w Six=ShilUng Novels,

VEILED WOMEN

By MARMADUKE PICKTHALL

Author of " Said the Fisherman,''^ " Children of the
Nile" etc.

A fine novel of the East telling the life story of an
English girl who marries an Egyptian noble and hves
the harem life. The gradual mental and physical
effect of the secluded life of the harem upon a
healthy western woman is shown with great effect,
while the story of her ineffectual appeal to the
Commander-in-Chief of the British Army of
Occupation to take her back, of her escape from
the harem and flight into the desert, of her return
and eventual relapse into a state of resigned con-
tentment with her lot, will appeal strongly to every
woman. The wonderful world of the Cairene
women, their comings and goings, their intrigues,
their pleasures and pastimes, the gorgeous colouring
and the subtle perfume of their surroundings, the
mystery, the charm and the insidious influence of
the harem Hfe are depicted with the brilliance of
characterisation and richness of detail that one has
come to expect from the author of " Said the
Fisherman."

MR. EVE LEIGH NASH'S NEW BOOKS

LADY OF THE NIGHT

By BENJAMIN SWIFT

A charming story centreing round the romantic
attachment of two deHghtful people — Ysmyn Veltry,
the daughter of a wealthy French perfume manu-
facturer and Vivian Darsay, a great-grandson of an
old Crimean veteran, Colonel Darsay — whom, years
before the story opens, chance had brought together
and made playmates of among the perfumed fields
of roses, jasmine and all the other fragrant flowers
which surrounded Veltry's world-renowned dis-
tillery at Grasse.

At the instigation of an ambitious sister-in-law,
Veltry has com.e to London to inaugurate, on lines
which shall outvie in magnificence any similar
establishment, a shop in which to sell his perfumes.
Ysmyn and Vivian meet again under dramatic and
greatly changed conditions to find their path to
happiness beset with difficulties, and it is not until
the " Maison Merveille," which has quickly become
the talk of fashionable London and developed into
a veritable " palace of beauty culture " is, in the
height of its success, overtaken by disaster, that the
" Lady of the Night " — so called after jasmine, her
father's favourite flower — becomes the wife of her
erstwhile playmate.

MR. EVE LEIGH NASH'S NEW BOOKS

THE EMPEROR'S SPY

B7 HECTOR FLEISCHMANN

" The Emperor's Spy," which deals with the
struggle between Napoleon Bonaparte's secret
police, headed by a beautiful woman spy — Elvire —
and a gang of daring Royalist conspirators led by
Georges Cadoudal and the Chevalier Lahaye Saint
Hilare, is one of the most exciting, vivid and
elaborate historical novels since Dumas's " Three
Musketeers."

Famous historical characters, from Napoleon
downwards, crowd its pages. Incident follows
incident in quick succession, and plot is met by
cotmter-plot, until, at last, under the shadow of the
wild cliffs of Brittany the Emperor's Spy, having
achieved the crowning triumph of her life, meets
with a swift and tragic death at the hands of the
last of the Royalists. The book is 576 pages long
and there is not one page of this tremendous story
which does not glow with living, human interest.

GLOOMY FANNY AND OTHER
STORIES

By MORLEY ROBERTS

Author of^' Thor-pe's /F^y," " David Bran,"" etc.

Readers of Mr. Morley Roberts's novel " Thorpe's
Way " will remember that " Gloomy Fanny,"
otherwise the Hon. Edwin Fanshawe, was one of
the most amusing characters in that very amusing
story.

MR. EVE LEIGH NASH'S NEW BOOKS

I'D VENTURE ALL FOR THEE

By J. S. FLETCHER

Author o/" The Town of Crooked Ways" " The Fine
Air of Morning" etc.

A story of the Yorkshire coast, 1745.

THE LOST MILLION

By WILLIAM LE QUEUX

Author of " The Mystery of Nine," " Without
Trace" etc., etc.

CARNACKI
THE GHOST-FINDER

By WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON

Author of " The Night Land," " The Boats of Glen
Carig," etc.

A NEW NOVEL
By LADY TROWBRIDGE

MR. EVE LEIGH NASH'S NEW BOOKS

A HAREM ROMANCE

By E. DE LA VILLENEUVE

A very lifelike picture of the Young Turk Revolu-
tion is contained in this novel. A double love story,
full of thrilling incidents, is woven into the web of
public events, the two heroines, one a lovely Turkish
girl, the other a beautiful Armenian, having each
been prisoners in the Palace of Yildiz. The person-
ality of Abdul Hamid is vividly realised, and the
cruel oppression to which he subjected the inmates
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SETH OF THE CROSS

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